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BURR0UGH5S 

5harp  Eyes  and 
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AT    THE    STUDY    DOOR 


SDtje  KitjerfiiDc  iLiterature  Series. 


SHARP  EYES 


AND   OTHER  PAPERS 


BT 


JOHN   BURROUGHS 


^^mrt^^g 


HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

Boston :  4  Park  Street ;  New  York :   86  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  378-388  Wabash  Avenue 


CONTENTS. 


PAGS 

Sharp  Eves 3 

The  Apple .25 

A  Taste  of  Maine  Birch 41 

Winter  Neighbors  ,        .        . 05 

Notes  by  the  Wat 

I.    The  Weather-wise  Miiskrat ......  84 

II.    Cheating  the  Squirrels        .«.,,.  88 

III.  Fox  and  Hounfl      ........  89 

IV.  The  Woodchuck 02 


CopjTight,  1875,  1879,  1^81,  and  1886, 
Br  JOHN   BURROUGHS. 

AU  rights  reserved. 


SHARP  EYES  AND  OTHER  PAPERS. 


SHARP  EYES. 

Noting  how  one  eye  seconds  and  reinforces  the 
other,  I  have  often  amused  myself  by  wondering  what 
the  effect  would  be  if  one  could  go  on  opening  eye 
after  eye  to  the   number  say  of   a  dozen   or  more. 
What  would  he  see?     Perhaps  not  the  invisible-- 
not  the  odors  of  flowers  nor  the  fever  germs  in  the  air 
—  not  the  infinitely  small  of  the  microscope  nor  the 
infinitely  distant  of  the  telescope.    This  would  require, 
not  more  eyes  so  much  as  an  eye  constructed  with 
more  and  different  lenses  ;  but  would  he  not  see  with 
augmented  power  within  the  natural  limits  of  vision  ? 
^.t  any  rate  some  persons  seem  to  have  opened  more 
eyes  than  others,  they  see  with  such  force  and  distinct- 
ness ;  their  vision  penetrates  the  tangle  and  obscurity 
where  that  of  others  fails  like  a  spent  or  impotent 
bullet.    How  many  eyes  did  Gilbert  White  open  ?  how  - 
many  did  Henry  Thoreau?  how  many  did  Audubon? 
how  many  does  the  hunter,  matching  his  sight  against . 
the  keen  and  alert  sense  of  a  deer  or  a  moose,  or  a  fox 
or  a  wolf  ?     Not  outward  eyes,  but  inward.    We  open 
another  eye  whenever  we  see  beyond  the  first  general 
features  or  outlines  of  things  —  whenever  we  grasp  the 
special  details  and  characteristic  markings  that  this 
mask  covers.     Science  confers  new  powei^^f^iW^^ 

D.  H.  HILL  LIBRARY 
North  Carolina  State  College 


4  SHARP  EYES. 

Whenever  you  have  learned  to  discriminate  the  birds, 
or  the  plants,  or  the  geological  features  of  a  country, 
it  is  as  if  new  and  keener  eyes  were  added. 

Of  course  one  must  not  only  see  sharply,  but  read 
aright  what  he  sees.  The  facts  in  the  life  of  Nature 
that  are  transpiring  about  us  are  like  written  words 
that  the  observer  is  to  arrange  into  sentences.  Or 
the  writing  is  in  cipher  and  he  must  furnish  the  key, 
A  female  oriole  was  one  day  observed  very  much  pra 
occupied  under  a  shed  where  the  refuse  from  the  horse 
stable  was  thrown.  She  hopped  about  among  the  barn 
fowls,  scolding  them  sharply  when  they  came  too  near 
her.  The  stable,  dark  and  cavernous,  was  just  be- 
yond. The  bird,  not  finding  what  she  wanted  outside, 
boldly  ventured  into  the  stable,  and  was  presently  cap- 
tured by  the  farmer.  What  did  she  want  ?  was  the 
query.  What,  but  a  horsehair  for  her  nest  which  was 
in  an  apple-tree  near  by ;  and  she  was  so  bent  on  hav- 
ing one  that  I  have  no  doubt  she  would  have  tweaked 
one  out  of  the  horse's  tail  had  he  been  in  the  stable. 
Later  in  the  season  I  examined  her  nest  and  found  it 
sewed  through  and  through  with  several  long  horse- 
hairs, so  that  the  bird  persisted  in  her  search  till  the 
hair  was  found. 

Little  dramas  and  tragedies  and  comedies,  little 
characteristic  scenes,  are  always  being  enacted  in  the 
lives  of  the  birds,  if  our  eyes  are  sharp  enough  to  see 
them.  Some  clever  observer  saw  this  little  comedy 
played  among  some  English  sparrows  and  wrote  an 
account  of  it  in  his  newspaper ;  it  is  too  good  not  to 
be  true :  A  male  bird  brought  to  his  box  a  large,  fine 
goose  feather,  which  is  a  great  find  for  a  sparrow  and 
much  coveted.  After  he  had  deposited  his  prize  and 
chattered  his  gratuiations  over  it  he  went  away  ifi 


SHARP  EYES.  5 

quest  of  his  mate.  His  next-door  neighbor,  a  female 
bird,  seeing  her  chance,  quickly  slipped  in  and  seized 
the  feather,  —  and  here  the  wit  of  the  bird  came  out, 
for  instead  of  carrying  it  into  her  own  box  she  flew  with 
it  to  a  near  tree  and  hid  it  in  a  fork  of  the  branches, 
then  went  home,  and  when  her  neighbor  returned  with 
his  mate  was  innocently  employed  about  her  own  af-j 
fairs.  The  proud  male,  finding  his  feather  gone,  came 
out  of  his  box  in  a  high  state  of  excitement,  and,  with 
vvrath  in  his  manner  and  accusation  on  his  tongue, 
rushed  into  the  cot  of  the  female.  Not  finding  his 
goods  and  chattels  there  as  he  had  expected,  he 
stormed  around  a  while,  abusing  everybody  in  general 
and  his  neighbor  in  particular,  and  then  went  away  as 
if  to  repair  the  loss.  As  soon  as  he  was  out  of  sight, 
the  shrewd  thief  went  and  brought  the  feather  home 
and  lined  her  own  domicile  with  it. 

I  was  much  amused  one  summer  day  in  seeing  & 
bluebird  feeding  her  young  one  in  the  shaded  street  of 
a  large  town.  She  had  captured  a  cicada  or  harvest- 
fly,  and  after  bruising  it  a  while  on  the  ground  flew 
with  it  to  a  tree  and  placed  it  in  the  beak  of  the  young 
bird.  It  was  a  large  morsel,  and  the  mother  seemed 
to  have  doubts  of  her  chick's  ability  to  dispose  of  it, 
for  she  stood  near  and  watched  its  efforts  with  great 
solicitude.  The  young  bird  struggled  valiantly  with 
the  cicada,  but  made  no  headway  in  swallowing  it, 
when  the  mother  took  it  from  him  and  flew  to  the 
sidewalk,  and  proceeded  to  break  and  bruise  it  more 
thoroughly.  Then  she  again  placed  it  in  his  beak,  and 
seemed  to  say,  "  There,  try  it  now,"  and  sympathized 
so  thoroughly  with  his  efforts  that  she  repeated  many 
of  his  motions  and  contortions.  But  the  great  fly  was 
onyielding,  and,  indeed,  seemed  ridiculously  dispropor- 


6  SHARP  EYES. 

tioned  to  the  beak  that  held  it.  The  young  bird  flut* 
tered  and  fluttered  and  screamed,  "  I  'm  stuck,  I  'm 
stuck,"  till  the  anxious  parent  again  seized  the  morsel 
and  carried  it  to  an  iron  railing,  where  she  came  down 
upon  it  for  the  space  of  a  minute  with  all  the  force 
and  momentum  her  beak  could  command.  Then  she 
offered  it  to  her  young  a  third  time,  but  with  the 
same  result  as  before,  except  that  this  time  the  bird 
dropped  it ;  but  she  was  at  the  ground  as  soon  as  the 
:icada  was,  and  taking  it  in  her  beak  flew  some  dis« 
iance  to  a  high  board  fence  where  she  sat  motionless; 
for  some  moments.  While  pondering  the  problem 
hew  that  fly  should  be  broken,  the  male  bluebird  ap- 
proached her,  and  said  very  plainly,  and  I  thought 
rather  curtly,  "  Give  me  that  bug,"  but  she  quickly 
resented  his  interference  and  flew  farther  away,  where 
she  sat  apparently  quite  discouraged  when  I  last  sa\v 
her. 

The  bluebird  is  a  home  bird,  and  I  am  never  tired 
of  recurring  to  him.  Hi^  coming  or  reappearance  in 
the  spring  marks  a  new  chapter  in  the  progress  of  the 
season  ;  things  are  never  quite  the  same  after  one  has 
heard  that  note.  The  past  spring  the  males  came 
about  a  week  in  advance  of  the  females.  A  fine  male 
lingered  about  my  grounds  and  orchard  all  the  time, 
apparently  waiting  the  arrival  of  his  mate.  He  called 
'and  warbled  every  day,  as  if  he  felt  sure  she  was 
within  ear-shot,  and  could  be  hurried  up.  Now  he 
warbled  half-angrily  or  upbraidingly,  then  coaxingly, 
then  cheerily  and  confidently,  the  next  moment  in  a 
plaintive,  far-away  manner.  He  would  half  open  his 
wings,  and  twinkle  them  caressingly,  as  if  beckoning 
his  mate  to  his  heart.  One  morning  she  had  come, 
but  was  shy  and  reserved.     The  fond  male  flew  to  3 


SHARP  EYES.  7 

knot-hole  in  an  old  apple-tree,  and  coaxed  her  to  his 
side.  I  heard  a  fine  confidential  warble,  —  the  old, 
old  story.  But  the  female  flew  to  a  near  tree,  and 
uttered  her  plaintive,  homesick  note.  The  male  went 
and  got  some  dry  grass  or  bark  in  his  beak,  and  flew 
again  to  the  hole  in  the  old  tree,  and  promised  unre« 
mitting  devotion,  but  the  other  said  "nay,"  and  flew 
away  in  the  distance.  When  he  saw  her  going,  oi 
rather  heard  her  distant  note,  he  dropped  his  stuff, 
and  cried  out  in  a  tone  that  said  plainly  enough, 
"  Wait  a  minute.  One  word,  please,"  and  flew  swiftly 
in  pursuit.  He  won  her  before  long,  however,  and 
early  in  April  the  pair  were  established  in  one  of  the 
four  or  five  boxes  I  had  put  up  for  them,  but  not 
until  they  had  changed  their  minds  several  times.  As 
soon  as  the  first  brood  had  flown,  and  while  they  were 
yet  under  their  parents'  care,  they  began  another  nest 
in  one  of  the  other  boxes,  the  female,  as  usual,  doing 
all  the  work,  and  the  male  all  the  complimenting. 

A  source  of  occasional  great  distress  to  the  mother- 
bird  was  a  white  cat  that  sometimes  followed  me 
about.  The  cat  had  never  been  known  to  catch  a 
bird,  but  she  had  a  way  of  watching  them  that  was 
very  embarrassing  to  the  bird.  Whenever  she  ap- 
peared, the  mother  bluebird  would  set  up  that  pitiful 
melodious  plaint.  One  morning  the  cat  was  standing 
by  me,  when  the  bird  came  with  her  beak  loaded  with 
building  material,  and  alighted  above  me  to  survey 
the  place  before  going  into  the  box.  When  she  saw 
the  cat,  she  was  greatly  disturbed,  and  in  her  agitation 
could  not  keep  her  hold  upon  all  her  material.  Straw 
after  straw  came  eddying  down,  till  not  half  her  origi- 
nal burden  remained.  After  the  cat  had  gone  away, 
the  bird's  alarm  subsided,  till,  presently  seeing  the 


8  SHARP  EYES. 

coast  clear,  she  flew  quickly  to  the  box  and  pitched  in 
her  remaining  straws  with  the  greatest  precipitation, 
and,  without  going  in  to  arrange  them,  as  was  her 
wont,  flew  away  in  evident  relief. 

In  the  cavity  of  an  apple-tree  but  a  few  yards  offj 
and  much  nearer  the  house  than  they  usually  build, 
a  pair  of  high-holes,  or  golden-shafted  woodpeckers, 
took  up  their  abode.  A  knot-hole  which  led  to  the 
decayed  interior  was  enlarged,  the  live  wood  being  cut 
away  as  clean  as  a  squirrel  would  have  done  it.  The 
inside  preparations  I  could  not  witness,  but  day  after 
day,  as  I  passed  near,  I  heard  the  bird  hammering 
away,  evidently  beating  down  obstructions  and  shap- 
ing and  enlarging  the  cavity.  The  chips  were  not 
brought  out,  but  were  used  rather  to  floor  the  interior. 
The  woodpeckers  are  not  nest-builders,  but  rather 
nest-carvers. 

The  time  seemed  very  short  before  the  voices  of  the 
young  were  heard  in  the  heart  of  the  old  tree,  —  at 
first  feebly,  but  waxing  stronger  day  by  day  until 
they  could  be  heard  many  rods  distant.  When  I  put 
my  hand  upon  the  trunk  of  the  tree,  they  would  set 
up  an  eager,  expectant  chattering ;  but  if  I  climbed 
up  it  toward  the  opening,  they  soon  detected  the  un- 
usual sound  and  would  hush  quickly,  only  now  and 
then  uttering  a  warning  note.  Long  before  they  were 
fully  fledged  they  clambered  up  to  the  orifice  to  re- 
ceive their  food.  As  but  one  could  stand  in  the  open- 
ing at  a  time,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  elbowing  and 
struggling  for  this  position.  It  was  a  very  desirable 
one  aside  from  the  advantages  it  had  when  food  was 
served  ;  it  looked  out  upon  the  great  shining  world, 
into  which  the  young  birds  seemed  never  tired  of  gaz- 
ing.    Tlie  fresh  air  must  have  been  a  consideration 


SHARP  EYES.  9 

also,  for  the  interior  of  a  high-hole's  dwelling  is  not 
sweet.  When  the  parent  birds  came  with  food  the 
young  one  in  the  opening  did  not  get  it  all,  but  after 
he  had  received  a  portion,  either  on  his  own  motion  or 
on  a  hint  from  the  old  one,  he  would  give  place  to  the 
one  behind  him.  Still,  one  bird  evidently  outstripped 
his  fellows,  and  in  the  race  of  life  v/as  two  or  three 
days  in  advance  of  them.  His  voice  was  loudest  and 
his  head  oftenest  at  the  window.  But  I  noticed  that 
when  he  had  kept  the  position  too  long,  the  others 
evidently  made  it  uncomfortable  in  his  rear,  and,  after 
"  fidgeting  "  about  a  while,  he  would  be  compelled  to 
"  back  down."  But  retaliation  was  then  easy,  and  I 
fear  his  mates  spent  few  easy  moments  at  that  look- 
out. They  would  close  their  eyes  and  slide  back  into 
the  cavity  as  if  the  world  had.  suddenlj^  lost  all  its 
charms  for  them. 

This  bird  was,  of  course,  the  first  to  leave  the  nest. 
For  two  days  before  that  event  he  kept  his  position  in 
the  opening  most  of  the  time  and  sent  forth  his  strong 
voice  incessantly.  The  old  ones  abstained  from  feed- 
ing him  almost  entirely,  no  doubt  to  encourage  his 
exit.  As  I  stood  looking  at  him  one  afternoon  and 
noting  his  progress,  he  suddenly  reached  a  resolution, 
—  seconded,  I  have  no  doubt,  from  the  rear,  —  and 
launched  forth  upon  his  untried  wings.  They  served 
him  well  and  carried  him  about  fifty  yards  up-hill  the 
first  heat.  The  second  day  after,  the  next  in  size  and 
spirit  left  in  the  same  manner;  then  another,  till 
only  one  remained.  The  parent  birds  ceased  their 
visits  to  him,  and  for  one  day  he  called  and  called  till 
our  ears  were  tired  of  the  sound.  His  was  the  faint- 
est heart  of  all.  Then  he  had  none  to  encourage  him 
from  behind.     He  left  the  nest  and  clung  to  the  outer 


10  SHARP  EYES. 

bowl  of  the  tree,  and  yelped  and  piped  for  an  hour 
longer ;  then  he  committed  himself  to  his  wings  and 
went  his  way  like  the  rest. 

A  young  farmer  in  the  western  part  of  New  York, 
who  has  a  sharp,  discriminating  eye,  sends  me  some 
interesting  notes  about  a  tame  high-hole  he  once  had* 

"  Did  you  ever  notice,"  says  he,  "  that  the  high- 
liole  never  eats  anything  that  he  cannot  pick  up  with, 
his  tongue  ?  At  least  this  was  the  case  with  a  young 
one  I  took  from  the  nest  and  tamed.  He  could  thrust 
out  his  tongue  two  or  three  inches,  and  it  was  amusing 
to  see  his  efforts  to  eat  currants  from  the  hand.  He 
would  run  out  his  tongue  and  try  to  stick  it  to  the 
currant;  failing  in  that,  he  woidd  bend  his  tongue 
around  it  like  a  hook  and  try  to  raise  it  by  a  sudden 
jerk.  But  he  never  succeeded,  the  round  fruit  would 
roll  and  slip  away  every  time.  He  never  seemed  to 
think  of  taking  it  in  his  beak.  His  tongue  wrs  in 
constant  use  to  find  out  the  nature  of  everythirg  he 
saw ;  a  nail-hole  in  a  board  or  any  similar  holti  was 
carefully  explored.  If  he  was  held  near  the  face  he 
would  soon  be  attracted  by  the  eye  and  thrust  his 
tongue  into  it.  In  this  way  he  gained  the  respect  of 
a  number  of  half-grown  cats  that  were  around  the 
house.  I  wished  to  make  them  familiar  to  each  other, 
so  there  would  be  less  danger  of  their  killing  him.  So 
I  would  take  them  both  on  my  knee,  when  the  bird 
would  soon  notice  the  kitten's  eyes,  and  leveling  his 
bill  as  carefully  as  a  marksman  levels  his  rifle,  he 
would  remain  so  a  minute  when  he  would  dart  his 
tongue  into  the  cat's  eye.  This  was  held  by  the  cats 
to  be  very  mysterious:  being  struck  in  the  eye  by 
something  invisible  to  them.  They  soon  acquired 
such  a  terror  of  him  that  they  would  avoid  him  and 


SHARP  EYES.  U 

run  away  v/henever  they  saw  his  bill  turned  in  their 
direction.  He  never  would  swallow  a  grasshopper 
even  when  it  was  placed  in  his  throat;  he  would  shake 
himself  until  he  had  thrown  it  out  of  his  mouth.  His 
'  best  hold  '  was  ants.  He  never  was  surprised  at  any° 
thing,  and  never  was  afraid  of  anything.  He  would 
jdrive  the  turkey  gobbler  and  the  rooster.  He  would 
advance  upon  them  holding  one  wing  up  as  high  as 
possible,  as  if  to  strike  with  it,  and  shuffle  along  the 
ground  toward  them,  scolding  all  the  while  in  a  harsh 
voice.  I  feared  at  first  that  they  might  kill  him,  but 
I  soon  found  that  he  was  able  to  take  care  of  himself. 
I  would  turn  over  stones  and  dig  into  ant-hills  for 
him,  and  he  would  lick  up  the  ants  so  fast  that  a 
stream  of  them  seemed  going  into  his  mouth  unceas* 
ingiy.  I  kept  him  till  late  in  the  fall,  when  he  disap- 
peared, probably  going  south,  and  I  never  saw  him 
again." 

My  correspondent  also  sends  me  some  interesting 
observations  about  the  cuckoo.  He  says  a  large  goose- 
berry bush  standing  in  the  border  of  an  old  hedge- 
row, in  the  midst  of  open  fields,  and  not  far  from  his 
house,  was  occupied  by  a  pair  of  cuckoos  for  two  sea- 
sons in  succession,  and,  after  an  interval  of  a  year,  for 
two  seasons  more.  This  gave  him  a  good  chance  to 
observe  them.  He  says  the  mother-bird  lays  a  single 
egg^  and  sits  upon  it  a  number  of  days  before  laying 
the  second,  so  that  he  has  seen  one  young  bird  nearly 
grown,  a  second  just  hatched,  and  a  whole  egg  all  in 
the  nest  at  once.  "  So  far  as  I  have  seen,  this  is  the 
settled  practice,  —  the  young  leaving  the  nest  one  at 
a  time  to  the  number  of  six  or  eight.  The  young 
have  quite  the  look  of  the  young  of  the  dove  in  many 
respects.     When  nearly  grown  they  are  covered  with 


12  SHARP  EYES. 

long  blue  pin-feathers  as  long  as  darning-needleS| 
without  a  bit  of  plumage  on  them.  They  part  on  the 
back  and  hang  down  on  each  side  by  their  own  weight. 
With  its  curious  feathers  and  misshapen  body  the 
young  bird  is  anything  but  handsome.  They  never 
open  their  mouths  when  approached,  as  many  young 
birds  do,  but  sit  perfectly  still,  hardly  moving  when 
touched."  He  also  notes  the  unnatural  indifference 
of  the  mother-bird  when  her  nest  and  young  are  ap« 
proached.  She  makes  no  sound,  but  sits  quietly  on  a 
near  branch  in  apparent  perfect  unconcern. 

These  observations,  together  with  the  fact  that  the 
Bgg  of  the  cuckoo  is  occasionally  found  in  the  nests  of 
other  birds,  raise  the  inquiry  whether  our  bird  is 
slowly  relapsing  into  the  habit  of  the  European  spe- 
cies, which  always  foists  its  egg  upon  other  birds ;  or 
whether,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  mending  its 
manners  in  this  respect.  It  has  but  little  to  unlearn 
or  to  forget  in  the  one  case,  but  great  progress  to  make 
in  the  other.  How  far  is  its  rudimentary  nest  —  a 
mere  platform  of  coarse  twigs  and  dry  stalks  of  weeds 
—  from  the  deep,  compact,  finely  woven  and  finely 
modeled  nest  of  the  goldfinch  or  king-bird,  and  what 
a  gulf  between  its  indifference  toward  its  young  and 
their  solicitude  !  Its  irregular  manner  of  laying  also 
seems  better  suited  to  a  parasite  like  our  cow-bird,  or 
the  European  cuckoo,  than  to  a  regular  nest-builder. 

This  observer,  like  most  sharp-eyed  persons,  sees 
plenty  of  interesting  things  as  he  goes  about  his  work. 
He  one  day  saw  a  white  swallow,  which  is  of  rare 
occurrence.  He  saw  a  bird,  a  sparrow  he  thinks,  fly 
against  the  side  of  a  horse  and  fill  his  beak  with  hair 
from  the  loosened  coat  of  the  animal.  He  saw  a 
ehrike  pursue  a  chickadee,  when  the  latter  escaped  by 


SHARP  EYES.  13 

taking-  refuge  in  a  small  hole  in  a  tree.  One  day  in 
early  spring  he  saw  two  hen-hawks  that  were  circling 
and  screaming  high  in  air,  approach  each  other,  ex- 
tend a  claw,  and,  clasping  them  together,  fall  toward 
the  earth  flapping  and  struggling  as  if  they  were  tied 
together ;  on  nearing  the  ground  they  separated  and 
soared  aloft  again.  He  supposed  that  it  was  not  a 
passage  of  war  but  of  love,  and  that  the  hawks  were 
toying  fondly  with  each  other. 

He  further  relates  a  curious  circumstance  of  finding 
a  humming-bird  in  the  upper  part  of  a  barn  with  its 
bill  stuck  fast  in  a  crack  of  one  of  the  large  timbers, 
dead,  of  course,  with  wings  extended,  and  as  dry  as  a 
chip.  The  bird  seems  to  have  died  as  it  had  lived,  on 
the  wing,  and  its  last  act  was  indeed  a  ghastly  parody 
of  its  living  career.  Fancy  this  nimble,  flashing  sprite, 
whose  life  was  passed  probing  the  honeyed  depths  of 
flowers,  at  last  thrusting  its  bill  into  a  crack  in  a  dry 
timber  in  a  hay-loft,  and,  with  spread  wings,  ending 
its  existence. 

When  the  air  is  damp  and  heavy,  swallows  fre- 
quently hawk  for  insects  about  cattle  and  moving 
herds  in  the  field.  My  farmer  describes  how  they 
attended  him  one  foggy  day,  as  he  was  mowing  in  the 
meadow  with  a  mowing-machine.  It  had  been  foggy 
for  two  days,  and  the  swallows  were  very  hungry, 
and  the  insects  stupid  and  inert.  When  the  sound  of 
his  machine  was  heard,  the  swallows  appeared  and 
attended  him  like  a  brood  of  hungry  chickens.  He 
says  there  was  a  continued  rush  of  purple  wings 
over  the  "  cut-bar,"  and  just  where  it  was  causing  the 
grass  to  tremble  and  fall.  Without  his  assistance  the 
swallows  would  doubtless  have  gone  hungry  yet  an* 
other  day. 


14  SHARP  EYES. 

Of  the  hen-hawk,  he  has  observed  that  both  male 
and  female  take  part  in  incubation.  "I  was  rather 
surprised,"  he  says,  "  on  one  occasion,  to  see  how 
quickly  they  change  places  on  the  nest.  The  nesv.  was 
in  a  tall  beech,  and  the  leaves  were  not  yet  fully  out. 
I  could  see  the  head  and  neck  of  the  hawk  over  the 
edge  of  the  nest,  when  I  saw  the  other  hawk  coming 
down  through  the  air  at  full  speed.  I  expected  he 
would  alight  near  by,  but  instead  of  that  he  struck 
directly  upon  the  nest,  his  mate  getting  out  of  the 
way  barely  in  time  to  avoid  being  hit ;  it  seemed  al- 
most as  if  he  had  knocked  her  off  the  nest.  I  hardly 
see  how  they  can  make  such  a  rush  on  the  nest  with- 
out danger  to  the  eggs." 

The  king-bird  will  worry  the  hawk  as  a  whiffet  dog 
will  worry  a  bear.  It  is  by  his  persistence  and  au- 
dacity, not  by  any  injury  he  is  capable  of  dealing  his 
great  antagonist.  The  king-bird  seldom  more  than 
dogs  the  hawk,  keeping  above  and  between  his  wings, 
and  making  a  great  ado ;  but  my  correspondent  says 
he  once  "  saw  a  king-bird  riding  on  a  hawk's  back. 
The  hawk  fiew  as  fast  as  possible,  and  the  king- 
bird sat  upon  his  shoulders  in  triumph  until  they 
had  passed  out  of  sight,"  — tweaking  his  feathers,  no 
doubt,  and  threatening  to  scalp  him  the  next  moment. 

That  near  relative  of  the  king-bird,  the  great 
crested  fly-catcher,  has  one  well  known  peculiarity : 
lie  appears  never  to  consider  his  nest  finished  until  it 
contains  a  cast-off  snake-skin.  My  alert  correspon- 
dent one  day  saw  him  eagerly  catch  up  an  onion  skin 
and  make  off  with  it,  either  deceived  by  it  or  else 
thinking  it  a  good  substitute  for  the  coveted  material. 

One  day  in  May,  walking  in  the  woods,  I  came 
uj^on  the  nest  of  a  whippoorwill,  or  rather  its  eggs* 


SHARP  EYES.  15 

for  it  builds  no  nest,  —  two  elliptical  whitish  spotted 
eggs  lying  upon  the  dry  leaves.  My  foot  was  within 
a  yard  of  the  mother-bird  before  she  flew.  I  won- 
dered what  a  sharp  eye  would  detect  curious  or  char- 
acteristic in  the  ways  of  the  bird,  so  I  came  to  the 
place  many  times  and  had  a  look.  It  was  always  a 
task  to  separate  the  bird  from  her  surroundings, 
though  I  stood  within  a  few;  feet  of  her,  and  knew 
exactly  where  to  look.  One  had  to  bear  on  with  his 
eye,  as  it  were,  and  refuse  to  be  baffled.  The  sticks 
and  leaves,  and  bits  of  black  or  dark-brown  bark,  were 
all  exactly  copied  in  the  bird's  plumage.  And  then 
she  did  sit  so  close,  and  simulate  so  well  a  shapeless 
decaying  piece  of  wood  or  bark!  Twice  I  brought 
a  companion^  and  guiding  his  eye  to  the  spot,  noted 
how  difficult  it  was  for  him  to  make  out  there,  in  full 
view  upon  the  dry  leaves,  any  semblance  to  a  bird. 
When  the  bird  returned  after  being  disturbed,  she 
would  alight  within  a  few  inches  of  her  eggs,  and 
then,  after  a  moment's  pause,  hobble  awkwardly  upon 
them. 

After  the  young  had  appeared,  all  the  wit  of  the 
bird  came  into  play.  I  was  on  hand  the  next  day, 
I  think.  The  mother-bird  sprang  up  when  I  was 
within  a  pace  of  her,  and  in  doing  so  fanned  the 
leaves  with  her  wings  till  they  sprang  up  too;  as 
the  leaves  started  the  young  started,  and,  being  of 
the  same  color,  to  tell  which  was  the  leaf  and  which 
the  bird  was  a  trying  task  to  any  eye.  I  came  the 
next  day,  when  the  same  tactics  were  repeated.  Once 
a  leaf  fell  upon  one  of  the  young  birds  and  nearly 
hid  it.  The  young  are  covered  with  a  reddish  down, 
like  a  young  partridge,  and  soon  follow  their  mother 
about.     When  disturbed,    they   gave   but   one   leap, 


16  SHARP  EYES. 

then  settled  down,  perfectly  motionless  and  stupid* 
with  eyes  closed.  The  parent  bird,  on  these  occasions, 
made  frantic  efforts  to  decoy  me  away  from  her 
young.  She  would  fly  a  few  paces  and  fall  upon  her 
breast,  and  a  spasm,  like  that  of  death,  would  run 
through  her  tremulous  outstretched  wings  and  pros- 
trate body.  She  kept  a  sharp  eye  out  the  meanwhile 
to  see  if  the  ruse  took,  and  if  it  did  not,  she  was 
quickly  cured,  and  moving  about  to  some  other  point, 
tried  to  draw  my  attention  as  before.  When  followed 
she  always  alighted  upon  the  ground,  dropping  down 
in  a  sudden  peculiar  way.  The  second  or  third  day 
both  old  and  young  had  disappeared. 

The  whippoorwill  walks  as  awkwardly  as  a  swal- 
low, which  is  as  awkward  as  a  man  in  a  bag,  and  yet 
she  manages  to  lead  her  young  about  the  woods.  The 
latter,  I  think,  move  by  leaps  and  sudden  spurts,  their 
protective  coloring  shielding  them  most  effectively. 
Wilson  once  came  upon  the  mother-bird  and  her 
brood  in  the  woods,  and,  though  they  were  at  his  very 
feet,  was  so  baffled  by  the  concealment  of  the  young 
that  he  was  about  to  give  up  the  search,  much  disap- 
pointed, when  he  perceived  something  "  like  a  slight 
moldiness  among  the  withered  leaves,  and,  on  stoop- 
ing down,  discovered  it  to  be  a  young  whippoorwill, 
seemingly  asleep.'*  Wilson's  description  of  the  young 
is  very  accurate,  as  its  downy  covering  does  look  pre- 
cisely like  a  "  slight  moldiness."  Returning  a  few 
moments  afterward  to  the  spot  to  get  a  pencil  he  had 
forgotten,  he  could  find  neither  old  nor  young. 

It  takes  an  eye  to  see  a  partridge  in  the  woods, 
motionless  upon  the  leaves ;  this  sense  needs  to  be 
as  sharp  as  that  of  smell  in  hounds  and  pointers ;  and 
yet  I  know  an  unkempt  youth  that  seldom  fails  to 


SHARP  EYES.  17 

see  the  bird  and  shoot  it  before  it  takes  wing.  I 
think  he  sees  it  as  soon  as  it  sees  him,  and  before 
it  suspects  itself  seen.  What  a  training  to  the  eye 
is  hunting !  To  pick  out  the  game  from  its  surround- 
ings, the  grouse  from  the  leaves,  the  gray  squirrel  from 
the  mossy  oak  limb  it  hugs  so  closely,  the  red  fox , 
from  the  ruddy  or  brown  or  gray  field,  the  rabbit  from 
the  stubble,  or  the  white  hare  from  the  snow,  requires 
the  best  powers  of  this  sense.  A  woodchuck,  motion- 
less in  the  fields  or  upon  a  rock,  looks  very  much  like 
a  large  stone  or  bowlder,  yet  a  keen  eye  knows  the 
difference  at  a  glance,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away. 

A  man  has  a  sharper  eye  than  a  dog,  or  a  fox,  or 
than  any  of  the  wild  creatures,  but  not  so  sharp  an  ear 
or  nose.  But  in  the  birds  he  finds  his  match.  How 
quickly  the  old  turkey  discovers  the  hawk,  a  mere 
speck  against  the  sky,  and  how  quickly  the  hawk  dis- 
covers you  if  you  happen  to  be  secreted  in  the  bushes, 
or  behind  the  fence  near  which  he  alights !  One  ad- 
vantage the  bird  surely  has,  and  that  is,  owing  to  the 
form,  structure,  and  position  of  the  eye,  it  has  a  much 
larger  field  of  vision  —  indeed,  can  probably  see  in 
nearly  every  direction  at  the  same  instant,  behind  as 
well  as  before.  Man's  field  of  vision  embraces  less 
than  half  a  circle  horizontally,  and  still  less  vertically ; 
his  brow  and  brain  prevent  him  from  seeing  within 
many  degrees  of  the  zenith  without  a  movement  of  the 
head ;  the  bird,  on  the  other  hand,  takes  in  nearly  the 
whole  sphere  at  a  glance. 

I  find  I  see,  almost  without  effort,  nearly  every  bird 
within  sight  in  the  field  or  wood  I  pass  through  (a  flit 
of  the  wing,  a  flirt  of  the  tail  are  enough,  though  the 
flickering  leaves  do  all  conspire  to  hide  them),  and 
that  with  like  ease  the   birds   see    me,  though,  un- 


18  SHARP  EYES. 

questionably,  the  chances  are  immensely  in  their  favor. 
The  eye  sees  what  it  has  the  means  of  seeing,  truly. 
You  must  have  the  bird  in  your  heart  before  you  can 
find  it  in  the  bush.  The  eye  must  have  purpose  and 
aim.  No  one  ever  yet  found  the  walking  fern  who 
did  not  have  the  walking  fern  in  his  mind.  A  per* 
son  wiiose  eye  is  full  of  Indian  relics  picks  them  up  in 
every  field  he  walks  through. 

One  season  I  was  interested  in  the  tree-frogs ;  espe- 
cially the  tiny  piper  that  one  hears  about  the  woods 
and  brushy  fields  —  the  hyla  of  the  swamps  become 
a  denizen  of  the  trees  ;  I  had  never  seen  him  in  this 
new  role.  But  this  season,  having  hylas  in  mind,  or 
rather  being  ripe  for  them,  I  several  times  came  across 
them.  One  Sunday,  walking  amid  some  bushes,  I  cap- 
tured two.  They  leaped  before  me  as  doubtless  they 
had  done  many  times  before ;  but  though  I  was  not 
looking  for  or  thinking  of  them,  yet  they  were  quickly 
recognized,  because  the  eye  had  been  commissioned  to 
find  them.  On  another  occasion,  not  long  afterward, 
I  was  hurriedly  loading  my  gun  in  the  October  woods 
in  hopes  of  overtaking  a  gray  squirrel  that  was 
fast-  escaping  through  the  tree-tops,  when  one  of  these 
lilliput  frogs,  the  color  of  the  fast-yellowing  leaves, 
leaped  near  me.  I  saw  him  only  out  of  the  corner  of 
my  eye  and  yet  bagged  him,  because  I  had  already 
made  him  my  own. 

Nevertheless,  the  habit  of  observation  is  the  habit 
of  clear  and  decisive  gazing.  Not  by  a  first  casual 
glance,  but  by  a  steady  deliberate  aim  of  the  eye  are 
the  rare  and  characteristic  things  discovered.  You 
must  look  intently  and  hold  your  eye  firmly  to  the 
spot,  to  see  more  than  do  the  rank  and  file  of  man- 
kind.   The  sharp-shooter  picks  out  his  man  and  knows 


SHARP  EYES  19 

him  with  fatal  certainty  from  a  stump,  or  a  rock,  or  a 
cap  on  a  pole.  The  phrenologists  do  well  to  locate,  not 
only  form,  color,  and  weight,  in  the  region  of  the  eye, 
but  also  a  faculty  which  they  call  individuality  —  that 
which  separates,  discriminates,  and  sees  in  every  object 
its  essential  character.  This  is  just  as  necessary  to 
the  naturalist  as  to  the  artist  or  the  poet.  The  sharp 
eye  notes  specific  points  and  differences,  —  it  seizes 
upon  and  preserves  the  individuality  of  the  thing. 

Persons  frequently  describe  to  me  some  bird  they 
have  seen  or  heard  and  ask  me  to  name  it,  but  in  most 
cases  the  bird  might  be  any  one  of  a  dozen,  or  else 
it  is  totally  unlike  any  bird  found  on  this  continent. 
They  have  either  seen  falsely  or  else  vaguely.  Not 
so  the  farm  youth  who  wrote  me  one  winter  day  that 
he  had  seen  a  single  pair  of  strange  birds,  which  he 
describes  as  follows:  "They  were  about  the  size  of 
the  '  chippie,'  the  tops  of  their  heads  were  red,  and 
the  breast  of  the  male  was  of  the  same  color,  while 
that  of  the  female  was  nmch  lighter ;  their  rumps 
were  also  faintly  tinged  with  red.  If  I  have  described 
them  so  that  you  would  know  them,  please  write  me 
their  names."  There  can  be  little  doubt  but  the 
young  observer  had  seen  a  pair  of  red-polls,  —  a  bird 
related  to  the  goldfinch,  and  that  occasionally  comes 
down  to  us  in  the  winter  from  the  far  north.  Another 
time,  the  same  youth  wrote  that  he  had  seen  a  strange 
bird,  the  color  of  a  sparrow,  that  alighted  on  fences 
and  buildings  as  well  as  upon  the  ground,  and  that 
walked.  This  last  fact  showed  the  youth's  discrimi- 
nating eye  and  settled  the  case.  I  knew  it  to  be  a 
species  of  the  lark,  and  from  the  size,  color,  season, 
etc.,  the  tit-lark.  But  how  many  persons  would  have 
observed  that  the  bird  walked  instead  of  hopped  ? 


20  SHARP  EYES. 

Some  friends  of  mine  who  lived  in  the  country  tried 
to  describe  to  me  a  bird  that  built  a  nest  in  a  tree 
within  a  few  feet  of  the  house.  As  it  was  a  brown 
bird,  I  should  have  taken  it  for  a  wood-thrush,  had 
not  the  nest  been  described  as  so  thin  and  loose  that 
from  beneath  the  eggs  could  be  distinctly  seen.  The 
most  pronounced  feature  in  the  description  was  the 
barred  appearance  of  the  under  side  of  the  bird's  tail. 
I  was  quite  at  sea,  until  one  day,  when  we  were  driv- 
ing out,  a  cuckoo  flew  across  the  road  in  front  of  us^ 
when  my  friends  exclaimed,  "  There  is  our  bird  !  "  I 
had  never  known  a  cuckoo  to  build  near  a  house,  and 
I  had  never  noted  the  appearance  the  tail  presents 
when  viewed  from  beneath  ;  but  if  the  bird  had  been 
described  in  its  most  obvious  features,  as  slender,  with 
a  long  tail,  cinnamon  brown  above  and  white  beneath, 
with  a  curved  bill,  any  one  who  knew  the  bird  would 
have  recognized  the  portrait. 

We  think  we  have  looked  at  a  thing  sharply  until 
we  are  asked  for  its  specific  features.  I  thought  I 
knew  exactly  the  form  of  the  leaf  of  the  tulip-tree, 
until  one  day  a  lady  asked  me  to  draw  the  outline  of 
one.  A  good  observer  is  quick  to  take  a  hint  and  to 
follow  it  up.  Most  of  the  facts  of  nature,  especially 
in  the  life  of  the  birds  and  animals,  are  well  screened. 
We  do  not  see  the  play  because  we  do  not  look  in- 
tently enough.  The  other  day  I  was  sitting  with  a 
friend  upon  a  high  rock  in  the  woods,  near  a  small 
stream,  when  we  saw  a  water-snake  swimming  across 
a  pool  toward  the  opposite  bank.  Any  eye  would 
have  noted  it,  perhaps  nothing  more.  A  little  closer 
and  sharper  gaze  revealed  the  fact  that  the  snake  bore 
something  in  its  mouth,  which,  as  we  went  down  to 
investigate,  proved  to  he  a  small  cat-fish,  three    oit 


SHARP  EYES.  21 

four  inches  long.  The  snake  had  captured  it  in  the 
pool,  and,  like  any  other  fisherman,  wanted  to  get  its 
prey  to  dry  land,  although  itself  lived  mostly  in  the 
water.  Here,  we  said,  is  being  enacted  a  little  tragedy, 
that  would  have  escaped  any  but  sharp  eyes.  The 
snake,  which  was  itself  small,  had  the  fish  by  the 
throat,  the  hold  of  vantage  among  all  creatures,  and 
clung  to  it  with  great  tenacity.  The  snake  knew  that 
its  best  tactics  was  to  get  upon  dry  land  as  soon  as 
possible.  It  could  not  swallow  its  victim  alive,  and  it 
could  not  strangle  it  in  the  water.  For  a  while  it 
tried  to  kill  its  game  by  holding  it  up  out  of  the 
water,  but  the  fish  grew  heavy,  and  every  few  mo- 
ments its  struggles  brought  down  the  snake's  head. 
This  would  not  do.  Compressing  the  fish's  throat 
would  not  shut  off  its  breath  under  such  circum- 
stances, so  the  wily  serpent  tried  to  get  ashore  with  it, 
and  after  several  attempts  succeeded  in  effecting  a 
landing  on  a  flat  rock.  But  the  fish  died  hard.  Cat- 
fish do  not  give  up  the  ghost  in  a  hurry.  Its  throat 
was  becoming  congested,  but  the  snake's  distended 
jaws  must  have  ached.  It  was  like  a  petrified  gape. 
Then  the  spectators  became  very  curious  and  close  in 
their  scrutiny,  and  the  snake  determined  to  withdraw 
from  the  public  gaze  and  finish  the  business  in  hand 
to  its  own  notions.  But,  when  gently  but  firmly  re- 
monstrated with  by  my  friend  with  his  walking-stick, 
it  dropped  the  fish  and  retreated  in  high  dudgeon  be- 
neath a  stone  in  the  bed  of  the  creek.  The  fish,  with 
a  swollen  and  angry  throat,  went  its  way  also. 

Birds,  1  say,  have  wonderfully  keen  eyes.  Throw 
a  fresh  bone  or  a  piece  of  meat  upon  the  snow  in 
winter,  and  see  how  soon  the  crows  will  discover  it 
and  be  on  hand.     If  it  be  near  the  house  or  barn,  the 


22  SHARP  EYES. 

crow  tliat  first  discovers  it  will  alight  near  it,  to  make 
sure  he  is  not  deceived ;  then  he  will  go  away,  and 
soon  return  with  a  companion.  The  two  alight  a  few 
yards  from  the  bone,  and  after  some  delay,  during 
which  the  vicinity  is  sharply  scrutinized,  one  of  the 
crows  advances  boldly  to  within  a  few  feet  of  the 
coveted  prize.  Here  he  pauses,  and  if  no  trick  is  dis- 
covered, and  the  meat  be  indeed  meat,  he  seizes  it  and 
makes  off. 

One  midwinter  I  cleared  away  the  snow  under  an 
apple-tree  near  the  house  and  scattered  some  corn 
there.  I  had  not  seen  a  blue-jay  for  weeks,  yet  that 
very  day  one  found  my  corn,  and  after  that  several 
came  daily  and  partook  of  it,  holding  the  kernels 
under  their  feet  upon  the  limbs  of  the  trees  and  peck- 
ing them  vigorously. 

Of  course  the  woodpecker  and  his  kind  have  sharp 
eyes ;  still  I  was  surprised  to  see  how  quickly  Downy 
found  out  some  bones  that  were  placed  in  a  convenient 
place  under  the  shed  to  be  pounded  up  for  the  hens. 
In  going  out  to  the  barn  I  often  disturbed  him  making 
a  meal  off  the  bite  of  meat  that  still  adhered  to  them. 

"  Look  intently  enough  at  anything,"  said  a  poet  to 
me  one  day,  "  and  you  will  see  something  that  would 
otherwise  escape  you."  I  thought  of  the  remark  as  I 
sat  on  a  stump  in  an  opening  of  the  woods  one  spring 
day.  I  saw  a  small  hawk  approaching ;  he  flew  to  a 
tall  tulip-tree  and  alighted  on  a  large  limb  near  the 
top.  He  eyed  me  and  I  eyed  him.  Then  the  bird 
disclosed  a  trait  that  was  new  to  me :  he  hopped  along 
the  limb  to  a  small  cavitv  near  the  trunk,  when  he 
thrust  in  his  head  and  pulled  out  some  small  object 
and  fell  to  eating  it.  After  he  had  partaken  of  it  for 
some  minutes  he  put  the  remainder  back  in  his  larder 


SHARP  EYES.  23 

and  flew  away.  I  had  seen  something  like  feathers 
eddying  slowly  down  as  the  hawk  ate,  and  on  ap- 
proaching the  spot  found  the  feathers  of  a  sparrow 
here  and  there  clinging  to  the  bushes  beneath  the 
tree.  The  hawk  then  — -  commonly  called  the  chicken 
hawk  —  is  as  provident  as  a  mouse  or  a  squirrel,  and 
lays  by  a  store  against  a  time  of  need,  but  I  should 
not  have  discovered  the  fact  had  I  not  held  my  eye 
on  him. 

An  observer  of  the  birds  is  attracted  by  any  unusual 
sound  or  commotion  among  them.  In  May  or  June, 
when  other  birds  are  most  vocal,  the  jay  is  a  silent 
bird ;  he  goes  sneaking  about  the  orchards  and  the 
groves  as  silent  as  a  pickpocket ;  he  is  robbing  bird's- 
nests  and  he  is  very  anxious  that  nothing  should  be 
said  about  it ;  but  in  the  fall  none  so  quick  and  loud  to 
cry  "  Thief,  thief  !  "  as  he.  One  December  morning  a 
troop  of  jays  discovered  a  little  screech-owl  secreted 
in  the  hollow  trunk  of  an  old  apple-tree  near  my 
house.  How  they  found  the  owl  out  is  a  mystery,  since 
it  never  ventures  forth  in  the  light  of  day  ;  but  they 
did,  and  proclaimed  the  fact  with  great  emphasis.  I 
suspect  the  bluebirds  first  told  them,  for  these  birds  are 
constantly  peeping  into  holes  and  crannies,  both  spring 
and  fall.  Some  unsuspecting  bird  had  probably  en- 
tered the  cavity  prospecting  for  a  place  for  next  year's 
nest,  or  else  looking  out  a  likely  place  to  pass  a 
cold  night,  and  then  had  rushed  out  with  important 
news.  A  boy  who  should  unwittingly  venture  into  a 
bear's  den  when  Bruin  was  at  home  could  not  be  more 
astonished  and  alarmed  than  a  bluebird  would  be  on 
finding  itself  in  the  cavity  of  a  decayed  tree  with  an 
owl.  At  any  rate  the  bluebirds  joined  the  jays  in 
calling  the  attention  of  all  whom  it  might  concern  to 


24  SHARP  EYES, 

the  fact  that  a  culprit  of  some  sort  was  hiding  from 
the  light  of  day  in  the  old  apple-tree.  I  heard  the 
notes  of  warning  and  alarm  and  approached  to  within 
eye-shot.  The  bluebirds  were  cautious  and  hovered 
about  uttering  their  peculiar  twittering  calls ;  but  the 

^  jays  were  bolder  and  took  turns  looking  in  at  the 
cavity,  and  deriding  the  poor,  shrinking  owl.     A  jay 

,  would  alight  in  the  entrance  of  the  hole  and  flirt 
and  peer  and  attitudinize,  and  then  fly  away  crying 
"  Thief,  thief,  thief !  "  at  the  top  of  his  voice. 

I  climbed  up  and  peered  into  the  opening,  and 
could  just  descry  the  owl  clinging  to  the  inside  of  the 
tree.  I  reached  in  and  took  him  out,  giving  little 
heed  to  the  threatening  snapping  of  his  beak.  He 
was  as  red  as  a  fox  and  as  yellow-eyed  as  a  cat.  He 
made  no  effort  to  escape,  but  planted  his  claws  in  my 
forefinger  and  clung  there  with  a  grip  that  soon  grew 
uncomfortable.  I  placed  him  in  the  loft  of  an  out- 
house in  hopes  of  getting  better  acquainted  with  him. 
By  day  he  was  a  very  willing  prisoner,  scarcely  mov- 
ing at  all,  even  when  approached  and  touched  with 
the  hand,  but  looking  out  upon  the  world  with  half- 
closed,  sleepy  eyes.  But  at  night  what  a  change ;  how 
alert,  how  wild,  how  active!  He  was  like  another 
bird  ;  he  darted  about  with  wide,  fearful  eyes,  and  re« 
garded  me  like  a  cornered  cat.     I  opened  the  window, 

'  and  swiftly,  but  as  silent  as  a  shadow,  he  glided  out 
into  the  congenial  darkness,  and  perhaps,  ere  this,  has 
revenged  himself  upon  the  sleeping  jay  or  bluebird 
that  first  betrayed  his  hiding-place. 


THE  APPLE. 

Lol  sweetened  with  the  summer  light, 
The  full-juiced  apple,  waxing  over-mellow, 
Drops  in  a  sUent  autunm  night. —  Tennyson. 

Not  a  little  of  the  sunshine  of  our  northern  win- 
ters is  surely  wrapped  up  in  the  apple.  How  could 
we  winter  over  without  it !  How  is  life  sweetened  by- 
its  mild  acids!  A  cellar  well  filled  with  apples  is 
more  valuable  than  a  chamber  filled  with  flax  and 
wool.  So  much  sound  ruddy  life  to  draw  upon,  to 
strike  one's  roots  down  into,  as  it  were. 

Especially  to  those  whose  soil  of  life  is  inclined  to 
be  a  little  clayey  and  heavy,  is  the  apple  a  winter 
necessity.  It  is  the  natural  antidote  of  most  of  the 
ills  the  flesh  is  heir  to.  Full  of  vegetable  acids  and 
aromatics,  qualities  which  act  as  refrigerants  and  an- 
tiseptics, what  an  enemy  it  is  to  jaundice,  indigestion, 
torpidity  of  liver,  etc.  It  is  a  gentle  spur  and  tonic 
to  the  whole  biliary  system.  Then  I  have  read  that 
it  has  been  found  by  analysis  to  contain  more  phos- 
phorus than  any  other  vegetable.  This  makes  it  the 
proper  food  of  the  scholar  and  the  sedentary  man ;  it 
feeds  his  brain  and  it  stimulates  his  liver.  Nor  is 
this  all.  Besides  its  hygienic  properties,  the  apple 
is  fall  of  sugar  and  mucilage,  which  make  it  highly 
nutritious.  It  is  said,  ''  The  operators  of  Cornwall, 
England,  consider  ripe  apples  nearly  as  nourishing  as 
bread,  and  far  more  so  than  potatoes.  In  the  year 
1801  —  which  was  a  year  of  much  scarcity  —  apples, 

D.  H.  HILL  LIBRARY 

North  Caraiina  .^tpifo  rnlUn*^ 


26  THE  APPLE, 

instead  of  being  converted  into  cider,  were  sold  to  the 
poor,  and  the  laborers  asserted  that  they  could  '  stand 
their  work '  on  baked  apples  without  meat ;  whereas 
a  potato  diet  required  either  meat  or  some  other  sub- 
stantial nutriment.  The  French  and  Germans  use 
apples  extensively,  so  do  the  inhabitants  of  all  Euro- 
pean nations.  The  laborers  depend  upon  them  as  an 
article  of  food,  and  frequently  make  a  dinner  of  sliced 
apples  and  bread." 

Yet  the  English  apple  is  a  tame  and  insipid  affair, 
compared  with  the  intense,  sun-colored  and  sun- 
steeped  fruit  our  orchards  yield.  The  English  have 
no  sweet  apple,  I  am  told,  the  saccharine  element 
apparently  being  less  abundant  in  vegetable  nature 
in  that  sour  and  chilly  climate  than  in  our  own.  It  is 
well  known  that  the  European  maple  yields  no  sugar, 
while  both  our  birch  and  hickory  have  sweet  in  their 
veins.  Perhaps  this  fact  accounts  for  our  excessive 
love  of  sweets,  which  may  be  said  to  be  a  national 
trait. 

The  Russian  apple  has  a  lovely  complexion,  smooth 
and  transparent,  but  the  Cossack  is  not  yet  all  elimi- 
nated from  it.  The  only  one  I  have  seen  —  the 
Duchess  of  Oldenburg  —  is  as  beautiful  as  a  Tartar 
princess,  with  a  distracting  odor,  but  it  is  the  least 
bit  puckery  to  the  taste. 

The  best  thing  I  know  about  Chili  is  not  its  guano 
beds,  but  this  fact  which  I  learn  from  Darwin's  "  V  oy 
age,"  namely,  that  the  apple  thrives  well  there.  Dar- 
win saw  a  town  there  so  completely  buried  in  a  wood 
of  apple-trees,  that  its  streets  were  merely  paths  in  an 
orchard.  The  tree  indeed  thrives  so  well,  that  large 
branches  cut  off  in  the  spring  and  planted  two  oi 
three  feet  deep  in  the  ground  send   out  roots  and 


THE  APPLE.  27 

develop  into  fine  full-bearing  trees  by  the  third  year. 
The  people  know  the  value  of  the  apple  too.  They 
make  cider  and  wine  of  it  and  then  from  the  refuse  a 
white  and  finely  flavored  spirit ;  then  by  another  pro- 
cess a  sweet  treacle  is  obtained  called  honey.  The 
children  and  the  pigs  eat  little  or  no  other  food.  He 
does  not  add  that  the  people  are  healthy  and  temper- 
ate, but  I  have  no  doubt  they  are.  We  knew  the 
apple  had  many  virtues,  but  these  Chilians  have  really 
opened  a  deep  beneath  a  deep.  We  had  found  out 
the  cider  and  the  spirits,  but  who  guessed  the  wine 
and  the  honey,  unless  it  were  the  bees  ?  There  is  a 
variety  in  our  orchards  called  the  winesap,  a  doubly 
liquid  name  that  suggests  what  might  be  done  with 
this  fruit. 

The  apple  is  the  commonest  and  yet  the  most  varied 
and  beautiful  of  fruits.  A  dish  of  them  is  as  becom- 
ing: to  the  centre-table  in  winter  as  was  the  vase  of 
flowers  in  the  summer,  —  a  bouquet  of  spitzenbergs 
and  greenings  and  northern  spies.  A  rose  when  it 
blooms,  the  apple  is  a  rose  when  it  ripens.  It  pleases 
every  sense  to  which  it  can  be  addressed,  the  touch, 
the  smell,  the  sight,  the  taste  ;  and  when  it  falls  in  the 
still  October  days  it  pleases  the  ear.  It  is  a  call  to  a 
banquet,  it  is  a  signal  that  the  feast  is  ready.  The 
bouo:h  would  fain  hold  it,  but  it  can  now  assert  its  in- 
dependence;  it  can  now  live  a  life  of  its  own. 

Daily  the  stem  relaxes  its  hold,  till  finally  it  lets  go 
completely,  and  down  comes  the  painted  sphere  with  a 
mellow  thumo  to  the  earth,  towards  which  it  has  been 
nodding  so  long.  It  bounds  away  to  seek  its  bed,  to 
hide  under  a  leaf,  or  in  a  tuft  of  grass.  It  will  now 
take  time  to  meditate  and  ripen !  What  delicious 
thoughts  it  has  there  nestled  with  its  fellows  under 


28  THE  APPLE. 

the  fence,   turning  acid    into   sugar,  and   sugar  into 


wine ! 


How  pleasing  to  tlie  touch  !  I  love  to  stroke  its 
polished  rondure  with  my  hand,  to  carry  it  in  my 
pocket  on  my  tramp  over  the  winter  hills,  or  through 
the  early  spring  woods.  You  are  company,  you  red- 
cheeked  spitz,  or  you  salmon-fleshed  greening  !  I  toy 
with  you ;  press  your  face  to  mine,  toss  you  in  the  air, 
roll  you  on  the  ground,  see  you  shine  out  where  you 
lie  amid  the  moss  and  dry  leaves  and  sticks.  You  are 
so  alive  I  You  glow  like  a  ruddy  flower.  You  look 
so  animated  I  almost  expect  to  see  you  move.  I 
postpone  the  eating  of  you,  you  are  so  beautiful! 
How  compact ;  how  exquisitely  tinted !  Stained  by 
the  sun  and  varnished  against  the  rains.  An  inde- 
pendent vegetable  existence,  alive  and  vascular  as  my 
own  flesh ;  capable  of  being  wounded,  bleeding,  wast- 
ing away,  and  almost  of  repairing  damages ! 

How  it  resists  the  cold  !  holding  out  almost  as  long 
as  the  red  cheeks  of  the  boys  do.  A  frost  that  de- 
stroys the  potatoes  and  other  roots  only  makes  the 
apple  more  crisp  and  vigorous ;  it  peeps  out  from 
the  chance  November  snows  unscathed.  When  I  see 
the  fruit-vender  on  the  street  corner  stamping  his  feet 
and  beating  his  hands  to  keep  them  warm,  and  his 
naked  apples  lying  exposed  to  the  blasts,  I  wonder  if 
they  do  not  ache  too  to  clap  their  hands  and  enliven 
their  circulation.  But  they  can  stand  it  nearly  as  long 
as  the  vender  can. 

Noble  common  fruit,  best  friend  of  man  and  most 
loved  by  him,  following  him  like  his  dog  or  his  cow, 
wherever  he  goes.  His  homestead  is  not  planted  till 
you  are  planted,  your  roots  intertwine  with  his  ;  thriv- 
ing best  where  he  thrives  best,  loving  the  limestone 


THE    APPLE.  29 

and  the  frost,  the  plow  and  the  pruning-knife,  you 
are  indeed  suggestive  of  hardy,  cheerful  industry,  and 
a  healthy  life  in  the  open  air.  Temperate,  chaste 
fruit !  you  mean  neither  luxury  nor  sloth,  neither 
satiety  nor  indolence,  neither  enervating  heats  nor  the 
Frigid  Zones.  Uncloying  fruit,  fruit  whose  best  sauce 
is  the  open  air,  whose  finest  flavors  only  he  whose 
taste  is  sharpened  by  brisk  work  or  walking  knows ; 
winter  fruit,  when  the  fire  of  life  burns  brightest; 
fruit  always  a  little  hyperborean,  leaning  towards  the 
cold ;  bracing,  sub-acid,  active  fruit.  I  think  you 
must  come  from  the  north,  you  are  so  frank  and  hon- 
est, so  sturdy  and  appetizing.  You  are  stocky  and 
homely  like  the  northern  races.  Your  quality  is 
Saxon.  Surely  the  fiery  and  impetuous  south  is  not 
akin  to  you.  Not  spices  or  olives  or  the  sumptuous 
liquid  fruits,  but  the  grass,  the  snow,  the  grains,  the 
coolness  is  akin  to  you.  I  think  if  I  could  subsist  on 
you  or  the  like  of  you,  I  should  never  have  an  intem- 
perate or  ignoble  thought,  never  be  feverish  or  de- 
spondent. So  far  as  I  could  absorb  or  transmute 
your  quality  I  should  be  cheerful,  continent,  equitable, 
sweet-blooded,  long-lived,  and  should  shed  warmth 
and  contentment  around. 

Is  there  any  other  fruit  that  has  so  much  facial  ex« 
pression  as  the  apple?  What  boy  does  not  more  than 
half  believe  they  can  see  with  that  single  eye  of 
theirs  ?  Do  they  not  look  and  nod  to  him  from  the 
bough  ?  The  swaar  has  one  look,  the  rambo  another, 
the  spy  another.  The  youth  recognizes  the  seek-no- 
further  buried  beneath  a  dozen  other  varieties,  the 
moment  he  catches  a  glance  of  its  eye,  or  the  bonny- 
cheeked  Newtown  pippin,  or  the  gentle  but  sharp-nosed 
gilliflower.      He  goes  to  the  great  bin  in  the  cellar 


liO  THE  APPLE, 

and.  sinks  his  shafts  here  and  there  in  the  garnered 
wealth  of  the  orchards,  mining  for  his  favorites,  some- 
times coming  plump  upon  them,  sometimes  catching  a 
glimpse  of  them  to  the  right  or  left,  or  uncovering 
them  as  keystones  in  an  arch  made  up  of  many  varie- 
ties. 

In  the  dark  he  can  usually  tell  them  by  the  sense 
of  touch.  There  is  not  only  the  size  and  shape,  but 
there  is  the  texture  and  polish.  Some  apples  are  coarse- 
grained and  some  are  fine ;  some  are  thin-skinned  and 
some  are  thick.  One  variety  is  quick  and  vigorous 
beneath  the  touch  ;  another  gentle  and  yielding.  The 
pinnock  has  a  thick  skin  with  a  spongy  lining,  a  bruise 
in  it  becomes  like  a  jjiece  of  cork.  The  tallow  apple 
has  an  unctuous  feel,  as  its  name  suggests.  It  sheds 
water  like  a  duck.  What  apple  is  that  with  a  fat 
curved  stem  that  blends  so  prettily  with  its  own  flesh, 
—  the  wine  -  apple  ?  Some  varieties  impress  me  as 
masculine,  —  weather-stained,  freckled,  lasting  and 
rugged  ;  others  are  indeed  lady  apples,  fair,  delicate, 
shining,  mild-flavored,  white-meated,  like  the  egg-drop 
and  the  lady-finger.  The  practiced  hand  knows  each 
kind  by  the  touch. 

Do  you  remember  the  apple  hole  in  the  garden  or 
back  of  the  house,  Ben  Bolt  ?  In  the  fall  after  the 
bins  in  the  cellar  had  been  well  stocked,  we  excavated 
:a  circular  pit  in  the  warm,  mellow  earth,  and  covering 
the  bottom  with  clean  rye  straw,  emptied  in  basketful 
ifter  basketful  of  hardy  choice  varieties,  till  there  was 
A  tent -shaped  mound  several  feet  high  of  shining 
/ar legated  fruit.  Then  wrapping  it  about  with  a  thick 
layer  of  long  rye  straw,  and  tucking  it  up  snug  and 
warm,  the  mound  was  covered  with  a  thin  coating  o| 
earth,  a  flat  stone  on  the  top  holding  down  the  stra^ 


THE  APPLE.  31 

As  winter  set  in,  another  coating  of  earth  was  put 
upon  it,  with  perhaps  an  overcoat  of  coarse  dry  stable 
manure,  and  the  precious  pile  was  left  in  silence  and 
darkness  till  spring.  No  marmot  hibernating  under 
ground  in  his  nest  of  leaves  and  dry  grass,  more  cosy 
and  warm.  No  frost,  no  wet,  but  fragrant  privacy 
and  quiet.  Then  how  the  earth  tempers  and  flavors 
the  apples  !  It  draws  out  all  the  acrid  unripe  quali- 
ties, and  infuses  into  them  a  subtle  refreshing  taste 
of  the  soil.  Some  varieties  perish ;  but  the  ranker, 
hardier  kinds,  like  the  northern  spy,  the  greening,  or 
the  black  apple,  or  the  russet,  or  the  pinnock,  how 
they  ripen  and  grow  in  grace,  how  the  green  becomes 
gold,  and  the  bitter  becomes  sweet ! 

As  the  supply  in  the  bins  and  barrels  gets  low  and 
spring  approaches,  the  buried  treasures  in  the  garden 
are  remembered.  With  spade  and  axe  we  go  out  and 
penetrate  through  the  snow  and  frozen  earth  till  the 
inner  dressing  of  straw  is  laid  bare.  It  is  not  quite 
as  clear  and  bright  as  when  we  placed  it  there  last 
fall,  but  the  fruit  beneath,  which  the  hand  soon  ex- 
poses, is  just  as  bright  and  far  more  luscious.  Then, 
as  day  after  day  you  resort  to  the  hole,  and,  removing 
the  straw  and  earth  from  the  opening,  thrust  your 
arm  into  the  fragrant  pit,  you  have  a  better  chance 
than  ever  before  to  become  acquainted  with  your 
favorites  by  the  sense  of  touch.  How  you  feel  fop 
them,  reaching  to  the  i-ight  and  left !  Now  you  have 
got  a  Tolman  sweet ;  you  imagine  you  can  feel  that 
single  meridian  line  that  divides  it  into  two  hemi- 
spheres. Now  a  greening  fills  your  hand,  you  feel  its 
fine  quality  beneath  its  rough  coat.  Now  you  have 
hooked  a  swaar,  you  recognize  its  full  face ;  now  a 
V'andevere  or  a  King  rolls  down  from  the  apex  above, 


32  THE  APPLE. 

and  you  bag  it  at  once.  When  you  were  a  school- 
boy you  stowec  *-.hes8  away  in  your  pockets  and  ate 
them  along  the  i  lad  and  at  recess,  and  again  at  noon- 
time ;  and  they,  i.i  a  measure,  corrected  the  effects 
of  the  cake  and  pie  with  which  your  indulgent  mother 
filled  your  lunch-basket. 

The  boy  is  indeed  the  true  apple-eater,  and  is  not 
to  be  questioned  how  he  came  by  the  fruit  with  which 
his  pockets  are  filled.  It  belongs  to  him  ^  .  .  His 
own  juicy  flesh  craves  the  juicy  flesh  of  the  apple.. 
Sap  draws  sap.  His  fruit-eating  has  little  reference 
to  the  state  of  his  appetite.  Whether  he  be  full  of 
meat  or  empty  of  meat  he  wants  the  apple  just  the 
same.  Before  meal  or  after  meal  it  never  comes 
amiss.  The  farm-boy  munches  apples  all  day  long. 
He  has  nests  of  them  in  the  hay  -  mow,  mellowing, 
to  which  he  makes  frequent  visits.  Sometimes  old 
Brindle,  having  access  through  the  open  door,  smells 
them  out  and  makes  short  work  of  them. 

In  some  countries  the  custom  remains  of  placing  a 
rosy  apple  in  the  hand  of  the  dead  that  they  may  find 
it  when  they  enter  paradise.  In  northern  mythology 
the  giants  eat  apples  to  keep  off  old  age. 

The  apple  is  indeed  the  fruit  of  youth.  As  we 
grow  old  we  crave  apples  less.  It  is  an  ominous  sign. 
When  you  are  ashamed  to  be  seen  eating  them  on  the 
street ;  when  you  can  carry  them  in  your  pocket  and 
your  hand  not  constantly  find  its  way  to  them  ;  when 
your  neighbor  has  apples  and  you  have  none,  and  you 
make  no  nocturnal  visits  to  his  orchard;  when  your 
lunch-basket  is  without  them,  and  you  can  pass  a 
winter's  night  by  the  fireside  with  no  thought  of  the 
fruit  at  your  elbow,  then  be  assured  you  are  no  longer 
a  boy,  either  in  heart  or  years. 


THE  APPLE.  33 

The  genuine  apple-eater  comforts  himself  with  an 
apple  in  their  season  as  others  with  a  pipe  or  cigar. 
When  he  has  nothing  else  to  do,  or  is  bored,  he  eats 
an  apple.  While  he  is  waiting  for  the  train  he  eats 
an  apple,  sometimes  several  of  them.  When  he  takes 
a  walk  he  arms  himself  with  apples.  His  traveling 
bag  is  full  of  apples.  He  offers  an  apple  to  his  com- 
panion, and  takes  one  himself.  They  are  his  chief 
solace  when  on  the  road.  He  sows  their  seed  all  along 
the  route.  He  tosses  the  core  from  the  car-window 
and  from  the  top  of  the  stage-coach.  He  would,  in 
time,  make  the  land  one  vast  orchard.  He  dispenses 
with  a  knife.  He  prefers  that  his  teeth  shall  have  the 
first  taste.  Then  he  knows  the  best  flavor  is  imme- 
diately beneath  the  skin,  and  that  in  a  pared  apple 
this  is  lost.  If  you  will  stew  the  apple,  he  says,  in- 
stead of  baking  it,  by  all  means  leave  the  skin  on.  It 
improves  the  color  and  vastly  heightens  the  flavor  of 
the  dish. 

The  apple  is  a  masculine  fruit ;  hence  women  are 
poor  apple-eaters.  It  belongs  to  the  open  air,  and 
requires  an  open-air  taste  and  relish. 

I  instantly  sympathized  with  that  clergyman  I  read 
of,  who  on  pulling  out  his  pocket-handkerchief  in  the 
midst  of  his  discourse,  pulled  out  two  bouncing  apples 
with  it  that  went  rolling  across  the  pulpit  floor  and 
down  the  pulpit  stairs.  These  apples  were,  no  doubt, 
to  be  eaten  after  the  sermon  on  his  way  home,  or  to 
his  next  appointment.  They  would  take  the  taste  of 
it  out  of  his  mouth.  Then,  would  a  minister  be  apt 
to  grow  tiresome  with  two  big  apples  in  his  coat-tail 
pockets?  Would  he  not  naturally  hasten  along  to 
"  lastly,"  and  the  big  apples  ?  If  they  were  the  dom- 
inie apples,  and  it  was  April  or  May,  he  certainly 
would^ 


34  THE  APPLE. 

How  the  early  settlers  prized  the  apple !  When 
their  trees  broke  down  or  were  split  asunder  by  the 
storms,  the  neighbors  turned  out,  the  divided  tree  was 
put  together  again  and  fastened  with  iron  bolts.  In 
some  of  the  oldest  orchards  one  may  still  occasionally 
see  a  large  dilapidated  tree  with  the  rusty  iron  bolt 
yet  visible.  Poor,  sour  fruit,  too,  but  sweet  in  those 
early  pioneer  days.  My  grandfather,  who  was  one  of 
these  heroes  of  the  stump,  used  every  fall  to  make  a 
journey  of  forty  miles  for  a  few  apples,  which  he 
brought  home  in  a  bag  on  horseback.  He  frequently 
started  from  home  by  two  or  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and  at  one  time  both  he  and  his  horse  were 
much  frightened  by  the  screaming  of  panthers  in  a 
narrow  pass  in  the  mountains  through  which  the  road 
led. 

Emerson,  I  believe,  has  spoken  of  the  apple  as  the 
social  fruit  of  New  England.  Indeed,  what  a  pro- 
moter or  abettor  of  social  intercourse  among  our  rural 
population  the  apple  has  been,  the  company  growing 
more  merry  and  unrestrained  as  soon  as  the  basket  cf 
apples  was  passed  round  I  When  the  cider  followed, 
the  introduction  and  good  understanding  were  com- 
plete. Then  those  rural  gatherings  that  enlivened 
the  autumn  in  the  country,  known  as  "  apple  cuts," 
,  now,  alas !  nearly  obsolete,  where  so  many  things  were 
cut  and  dried  besides  apples !  The  larger  and  more 
loaded  the  orchard,  the  more  frequently  the  invita- 
tions went  round  and  the  higher  the  social  and  con- 
vivial spirit  ran.  Ours  is  eminently  a  country  of  the 
orchard.  Horace  Greeley  said  he  had  seen  no  land  in 
which  the  orchard  formed  such  a  prominent  feature 
in  the  rural  and  a2:ricultural  districts.  Nearly  every 
farmhouse  in  the  Eastern  and  Northern  States  has  its 


THE  APPLE.  85 

^Kitting  or  its  background  of  apple-trees,  which  gener- 
ally date  back  to  the  first  settlement  of  the  farm. 
Indeed,  the  orchard,  more  than  almost  any  other 
thing,  tends  to  soften  and  humanize  the  country,  and 
to  give  the  place  of  which  it  is  an  adjunct,  a  settled, 
domestic  look.  The  apple-tree  takes  the  rawness  and  ( 
wildness  off  any  scene.  On  the  top  of  a  mountain,  or 
in  remote  pastures,  it  sheds  the  sentiment  of  home. 
It  never  loses  its  domestic  air,  or  lapses  into  a  wild 
state.  And  in  planting  a  homestead,  or  in  choosing 
a  building  site  for  the  new  house,  what  a  help  it  is  to 
have  a  few  old,  maternal  apple-trees  near  by ;  regular 
old  grandmothers,  who  have  seen  trouble,  who  have 
been  sad  and  glad  through  so  many  winters  and  sum- 
mers, who  have  blossomed  till  the  air  about  them  is 
sweeter  than  elsewhere,  and  borne  fruit  till  the  grass 
beneath  them  has  become  thick  and  soft  from  human 
contact,  and  who  have  nourished  robins  and  finches  in 
their  branches  till  they  have  a  tender,  brooding  look. 
The  ground,  the  turf,  the  atmosphere  of  an  old 
orchard,  seem  several  stages  nearer  to  man  than  that 
of  the  adjoining  field,  as  if  the  trees  had  given  back 
to  the  soil  more  than  they  had  taken  from  it ;  as  if 
they  had  tempered  the  elements  and  attracted  all  the 
genial  and  beneficent  influences  in  the  landscape 
around. 

An  apple  orchard  is  sure  to  bear  you  several  crops 
beside  the  apple.  There  is  the  crop  of  sweet  and  ten- 
der reminiscences  dating  from  childhood  and  spanning 
the  seasons  from  May  to  October,  and  making  the 
orchard  a  sort  of  outlying  part  of  the  household.  You 
have  played  there  as  a  child,  mused  there  as  a  youth 
or  lover,  strolled  there  as  a  thoughtful,  sad-eyed  man. 
Your  father,  perhaps,  planted  the  trees,  or  reared  them 


36  THE  APPLE. 

from  the  seed, .  and  you  yourself  have  pruned  and 
grafted  them,  and  worked  among  them,  till  every 
separate  tree  has  a  peculiar  history  and  meaning  in 
your  mind.  Then  there  is  the  never- failing  crop  of 
birds  —  robins,  goldfinches,  king-birds,  cedar-birds, 
hair-birds,  orioles,  starlings  —  all  nesting  and  breed- 
ing in  its  branches,  and  fitly  described  by  Wilson 
Flao-cr  as  "Birds  of  the  Garden  and  Orchard." 
Whether  the  pippin  and  sweetbough  bear  or  not,  the 
"punctual  birds"  can  always  be  depended  on.  In- 
deed, there  are  few  better  places  to  study  ornithology 
than  in  the  orchard.  Besides  its  regular  occupants, 
many  of  the  birds  of  the  deeper  forest  find  occasion  to 
visit  it  during  the  season.  The  cuckoo  comes  for  the 
tent-caterpillar,  the  jay  for  frozen  apples,  the  ruffed 
grouse  for  buds,  the  crow  foraging  for  birds'  eggs,  the 
woodpecker  and  chickadees  for  their  food,  and  the 
hiirh-hole  for  ants.  The  red-bird  comes  too,  if  only 
to  see  what  a  friendly  covert  its  branches  form ;  and 
the  wood-thrush  now  and  then  comes  out  of  the  grove 
near  by,  and  nests  alongside  of  its  cousin,  the  robin. 
The  smaller  hawks  know  that  this  is  a  most  likely 
spot  for  their  prey;  and  in  spring  the  shy  northern 
warblers  may  be  studied  as  they  pause  to  feed  on  the 
fine  insects  amid  its  branches.  The  mice  love  to 
dwell  here  also,  and  hither  comes  from  the  near  woods 
the  squirrel  and  the  rabbit.  The  latter  will  put  his 
head  through  the  boy's  slipper-noose  any  time  for  a 
taste  of  the  sweet  apple,  and  the  red  squirrel  and  chip- 
munk esteem  its  seeds  a  great  rarity. 

All  the  domestic  animals  love  the  apple,  but  none 
so  much  so  as  the  cow.  The  taste  of  it  wakes  her  up 
as  few  other  things  do,  and  bars  and  fences  must  be 
well  looked  after.     No  need   to  assort  them  or  pick 


THE   APPLE.  37 

out  the  ripe  ones  for  her.  An  apple  is  an  apple,  and 
there  is  no  best  about  it.  I  heard  of  a  quick-witted 
old  cow  that  learned  to  shake  them  down  from  the 
tree.  While  rubbing  herself  she  had  observed  that 
an  apple  sometimes  fell.  This  stimulated  her  to  rub 
a  little  harder,  when  more  apples  fell.  She  then  took 
the  hint  and  rubbed  her  shoulder  with  such  vigor  that 
the  farmer  had  to  check  her  and  keep  an  eye  on  her 
to  save  his  fruit. 

But  the  cow  is  the  friend  of  the  apple.  How  many 
trees  she  has  planted  about  the  farm,  in  the  edge  of 
the  woods,  and  in  remote  fields  and  pastures.  The 
wild  apples,  celebrated  by  Thoreau,  are  mostly  of  her 
planting.  She  browses  them  down  to  be  sure,  but  they 
are  hers,  and  why  should  she  not  ? 

What  an  individuality  the  apple-tree  has,  each  ya^ 
riety  being  nearly  as  marked  by  its  form  as  by  its 
fruit.  What  a  vigorous  grower,  for  instance,  is  the 
Kibston  pippin,  an  English  apple.  Wide  branching 
like  the  oak,  and  its  large  ridgy  fruit,  in  late  fall  or 
early  winter,  is  one  of  my  favorites.  Or  the  thick  and 
more  pendent  top  of  the  belleflower,  with  its  equally 
rich,  sprightly  uncloying  fruit. 

Sweet  apples  are  perhaps  the  most  nutritious,  and 
when  baked  are  a  feast  in  themselves.  With  a  tree 
of  the  Jersey  sweet  or  of  Tolman's  sweeting  in  bear- 
ing, no  man's  table  need  be  devoid  of  luxuries  and 
one  of  the  most  wholesome  of  all  deserts.  Or  the 
red  astrachan,  an  August  apple,  what  a  gap  may  be 
filled  in  the  culinary  department  of  a  household  at 
this  season,  by  a  single  tree  of  this  fruit !  And  what 
a  feast  is  its  shining  crimson  coat  to  the  eye  before  its 
snow-white  flesh  has  reached  the  tongue.  But  the 
apple  of  apples  for  the  household  is  the  spitzenberg. 


88  THE   APPLE. 

In  this  casket  Pomona  lias  put  her  highest  flavors.  It 
can  stand  the  ordeal  of  cooking  and  still  remain  a 
spitz.  I  recently  saw  a  barrel  of  these  apples  from 
the  orchard  of  a  fruit-grower  in  the  northern  part  of 
New  York,  who  has  devoted  especial  attention  to  this 
variety.  They  were  perfect  gems.  Not  large,  that 
had  not  been  the  aim,  but  small,  fair,  uniform,  and 
j  red  to  the  core.   How  intense,  how  spicy  and  aromatic ! 

But  all  the  excellences  of  the  apple  are  not  con- 
fined to  the  cultivated  fruit.  Occasionally  a  seedling 
springs  up  about  the  farm  that  produces  fruit  of  rare 
beauty  and  worth.  In  sections  peculiarly  adapted  to 
the  apple,  like  a  certain  belt  along  the  Hudson  River, 
I  have  noticed  that  most  of  the  wild  unbidden  trees 
bear  good,  edible  fruit.  In  cold  and  ungenial  districts, 
the  seedlings  are  mostly  sour  and  crabbed,  but  in 
more  favorable  soils  they  are  oftener  mild  and  sweet. 
I  know  wild  apples  that  ripen  in  August,  and  that  do 
not  need,  if  it  could  be  had,  Thoreau's  sauce  of  sharp 
November  air  to  be  eaten  with.  At  the  foot  of  a  liili 
near  me  and  striking  its  roots  deep  in  the  shale,  is  a 
giant  specimen  of  native  tree  that  bears  an  apple  that 
has  about  the  clearest,  waxiest,  most  transparent  com- 
plexion I  ever  saw.  It  is  good  size,  and  the  color  of 
a  tea-rose.  Its  quality  is  best  appreciated  in  the 
kitchen.  I  know  another  seedling  of  excellent  quality 
and  so  remarkable  for  its  firmness  and  density,  that 
it  is  known  on  the  farm  where  it  grows  as  the  "  heavy 
apple." 

I  have  alluded  to  Thoreau,  to  whom  all  lovers  of 
the  apple  and  its  tree  are  under  obligation.  His 
chapter  on  Wild  Apples  is  a  most  delicious  piece  of 
writing^.  It  has  a  "  tanj^  and  smack  "  like  the  fruit  it 
celebrates,  and  is  dashed  and  streaked  with  color  va 


THE  APPLE.  89 

the  same  manner.  It  has  the  hue  and  perfume  of  the 
crab,  and  the  richness  and  raciness  of  the  pippin.  But 
Thoreau  loved  other  apples  than  the  wild  sorts  and 
was  obliged  to  confess  that  his  favorites  could  not  be 
eaten  in-doors.  Late  in  November  he  found  a  blue- 
pearmain  tree  growing  within  the  edge  of  a  swamp^ 
almost  as  good  as  wild.  "  You  would  not  suppose," 
he  says,  "  that  there  was  any  fruit  left  there  on  the 
first  survey,  but  you  must  look  according  to  system. 
Those  which  lie  exposed  are  quite  brown  and  rotten 
now,  or  perchance  a  few  still  show  one  blooming  cheek 
here  and  there  amid  the  wet  leaves.  Nevertheless, 
with  experienced  eyes  I  explore  amid  the  bare  alders, 
and  the  huckleberry  bushes,  and  the  withered  sedge, 
and  in  the  crevices  of  the  rocks,  which  are  full  of 
leaves,  and  pry  under  the  fallen  and  decayed  ferns 
which,  with  apple  and  alder  leaves,  thickly  strew  the 
ground.  For  I  know  that  they  lie  concealed,  fallen 
into  hollows  long  since,  and  covered  up  by  the  leaves 
of  the  tree  itself  —  a  proper  kind  of  packing.  From 
these  lurking  places,  everywhere  within  the  circum- 
ference of  the  tree,  T  draw  forth  the  fruit  all  wet  and 
glossy,  maybe  nibbled  by  rabbits  and  hollowed  out 
by  crickets,  and  perhaps  a  leaf  or  two  cemented  to  it 
(as  Curzon  an  old  manuscript  from  a  monastery's 
mouldy  cellar),  but  still  with  a  rich  bloom  on  it,  and 
at  least  as  ripe  and  well  kept,  if  no  better  than  those 
in  barrels,  more  crisp  and  lively  than  they.  If  these 
resources  fail  to  yield  anything,  I  have  learned  to  look 
between  the  leaves  of  the  suckers  which  spring  thickly 
from  some  horizontal  limb,  for  now  and  then  one 
lodges  there,  or  in  the  very  midst  of  an  alder-clump, 
where  they  are  covered  by  leaves,  safe  from  cows  which 
may  have  smelled  them  out.     If  I  am  sharp-set,  for  I 


40  THE  APPLE. 

do  not  refuse  the  blue-pearmain,  I  fill  my  pockets  on 
each  side  ;  and  as  I  retrace  my  steps,  in  the  frosty  eve, 
being  perhaps  four  or  five  miles  from  home,  I  eat  one 
first  from  this  side,  and  then  from  that,  to  keep  my 
balance.*' 


A  TASTE  OF  MAINE  BIRCH. 

The  traveler  and  camper-out  in  Maine,  unless  he 
penetrates  its  more  northern  portions,  has  less  reason 
to  remember  it  as  a  pine-tree  State  than  a  birch-tree 
State.  The  white-pine  forests  have  melted  away  like 
snow  in  the  spring  and  gone  down  stream,  leaving 
only  patches  here  and  there  in  the  more  remote  and 
inaccessible  parts.  The  portion  of  the  State  I  saw  — 
the  valley  of  the  Kennebec  and  the  woods  about 
Moxie  Lake  —  had  been  shorn  of  its  pine  timber  more 
than  forty  years  before,  and  is  now  covered  with  a 
thick  growth  of  spruce  and  cedar  and  various  decid- 
uous trees.  But  the  birch  abounds.  Indeed,  when 
the  pine  goes  out  the  birch  comes  in  ;  the  race  of  men 
succeeds  the  race  of  giants.  This  tree  has  great  stay- 
at-home  virtues.  Let  the  sombre,  aspiring,  mysterious 
pine  go ;  the  birch  has  humble  every-day  uses.  In 
Maine,  the  paper  or  canoe  birch  is  turned  to  more 
account  than  any  other  tree.  I  read  in  Gibbon  that 
the  natives  of  ancient  Assyria  used  to  celebrate  in 
verse  or  prose  the  three  hundred  and  sixty  uses  to 
which  the  various  parts  and  products  of  the  palm-tree 
were  applied.  The  Maine  birch  is  turned  to  so  many 
accounts  that  it  may  well  be  called  the  palm  of  this 
region.  Uncle  Nathan,  our  guide,  said  it  was  made 
especially  for  the  camper-out ;  yes,  and  for  the  wood- 
man and  frontiersman  generally.  It  is  a  magazine,  a 
furnishing  store  set  up  in  the  wilderness,  whose  goods 


42  A    TASTE   OF   MAINE   BIRCH. 

are  free  to  every  comer.     The  whole  equipment  of  the 
camp  lies  folded  in  it,  and  comes  forth  at  the  beck  of 
the  woodman's  axe ;    tent,  waterproof  roof,  boat,  camp 
utensils,  buckets,  cups,  plates,  spoons,  napkins,  table- 
cloths, paper  for  letters  or  your  journal,  torches,  can- 
•  dles,  kindliug-wood,  and  fuel.     The  canoe-birch  yields 
■  you  its  vestments  with  the  utmost  liberality.     Ask  for 
its  coat,  and  it  gives  you  its  waistcoat  also.     Its  bark 
seems  wrapped  about  it  layer  upon  layer,  and  comes 
off  with  great  ease.     We  saw  many  rude  structures 
•  and  cabins  shingled  and  sided  with  it,  and  haystacks 
capped  with  it.     Near  a  maple- sugar  camp  there  was 
a  large  pile  of  birch-bark  sap-buckets,  —  each  Ducket 
made  of  a  piece  of  bark  about  a  yard  square,  folded 
up  as  the  tinman  folds  up  a  sheet  of  tin  to  make  a 
square  vessel,  the  corners  bent  around   against   the 
sides  and  held  by  a  wooden  pin.     When,  one  day,  we 
were  overtaken  by  a  shower  in  traveling  through  the 
woods,  our  guide  quickly  stripped  large  sheets  of  the 
bark  from  a  near  tree,  and  we  had  each  a  perfect 
umbrella  as  by  magic.     When  the  rain  was  over,  and 
we  moved  on,  I  wrapped  mine  about  me  like  a  large 
leather  apron,  and  it  shielded  my  clothes  from  the  wet 
bushes.     When  we  came  to  a  spring,  Uncle  Nathan 
would  have  a  birch-bark  cup  ready  before  any  of  us 
could  get  a  tin  one  out  of  his  knapsack,  and  I  think 
water  never  tasted  so  sweet  as  from  one  of  these  barl? 
cups.     It  is  exactly  the  thing.     It  just  fits  the  mouth, 
and  it  seems  to  give  new  virtues  to  the  water.     It 
makes  me  thirsty  now  when  I  think  of  it.     In  our 
camp  at  Moxie  we  made  a  large  birch-bark  box  to 
keep  the  butter  in  ;  and  the  butter  in  this  box,  covered 
with  some  leafy  boughs,  I  think  improved  in   flavoi 
day  by  day.    Maine  butter  needs  something  to  mollify 


A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH.  43 

and  sweeten  it  a  little,  and  I  think  birch  bark  will  do 
it.  In  camp  Uncle  Nathan  often  drank  liis  tea  and 
coffee  from  a  bark  cup  ;  the  china  closet  in  the  birch- 
tree  was  always  handy,  and  our  vulgar  tin  ware  was  gen- 
erally a  good  deal  mixed,  and  the  kitchen-maid  not  at 

jail  particular  about  dish-washing.  We  all  tried  the 
oatmeal  with  the  maple  syrup  in  one  of  these  dishes^ 
and  the  stewed  mountain  cranberries,  using  a  birch- 
bark  spoon,  and  never  found  service  better-  Uncle 
Nathan  declared  he  could  boil  potatoes  in  a  bark  ket- 
tle, and  I  did  not  doubt  him.  Instead  of  sending  our 
soiled  napkins  and  table-spreads  to  the  wash,  we  rolled 
them  up  into  candles  and  torches,  and  drew  daily  upon 
our  stores  in  the  forest  for  new  ones. 

But  the  great  triumph  of  the  birch  is  of  course  the 
bark  canoe.  When  Uncle  Nathan  took  us  out  under 
his  little  wood-shed,  and  showed  us,  or  rather  modestly 
permitted  us  to  see,  his  nearly  finished  canoe,  it  was 
like  a  first  glimpse  of  some  new  and  unknown  genius 
of  the  woods  or  streams.  It  sat  there  on  the  chips 
and  shavings  and  fragments  of  bark  like  some  shy, 
delicate  creature  just  emerged  from  its  hiding-place, 
or  like  some  wild  flower  just  opened.  It  was  the  first 
boat  of  the  kind  I  had  ever  seen,  and  it  filled  my  eye 

(Completely.     What  woodcraft  it  indicated,  and  what 

;  a  wild  free  life,  sylvan  life,  it  promised !  It  had  such 
a  fresh,  aboriginal  look  as  I  had  never  before  seen  in 
any  kind  of  handiwork.     Its  clear  yellow-red  color 

^  would  have  become  the  cheek  of  an  Indian  maideno 
Then  its  supple  curves  and  swells,  its  sinewy  stays 
and  thwarts,  its  bow-like  contour,  its  tomahawk  stem 
and  stern  rising  quickly  and  sharply  from  its  frame, 
were  all  vividly  suggestive  of  the  race  from  which  it 
came.     An  old  Indian  had  taught  Uncle  Nathan  tha 


44  A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH. 

art,  and  the  soul  of  the  ideal  red  man  looked  out  of 
the  boat  before  us.  Uncle  Nathan  had  spent  two 
days  ranging  the  mountains  looking  for  a  suitable 
tree,  and  had  worked  nearly  a  week  on  the  craft.  It 
was  twelve  feet  long,  and  would  seat  and  carry  five 
men  nicely.  Three  trees  contribute  to  the  making  of 
a  canoe  besides  the  birch,  namely,  the  white  cedar  for 
ribs  and  lining,  the  spruce  for  roots  and  fibres  to  sew 
its  joints  and  bind  its  frame,  and  the  pine  for  pitch 
or  rosin  to  stop  its  seams  and  cracks.  It  is  hand-made 
and  home-made,  or  rather  wood-made,  in  a  sense  that 
no  other  craft  is,  except  a  dug-out,  and  it  suggests  a 
taste  and  a  refinement  that  few  products  of  civilization 
realize.  The  design  of  a  savage,  it  yet  looks  like  the 
thought  of  a  poet,  and  its  grace  and  fitness  haunt  the 
imagination.  I  suppose  its  production  was  the  inev- 
itable result  of  the  Indian's  wants  and  surroundings, 
but  that  does  not  detract  from  its  beauty.  It  is,  in- 
deed, one  of  the  fairest  flowers  the  thorny  plant  of 
necessity  ever  bore.  Our  canoe,  as  I  have  intimated, 
was  not  yet  finished  when  we  first  saw  it,  nor  yet 
when  we  took  it  up,  with  its  architect,  upon  our  met- 
aphorical backs  and  bore  it  to  the  woods.  It  lacked 
part  of  its  cedar  lining  and  the  rosin  upon  its  joints, 
and  these  were  added  after  we  reached  our  destination. 
Though  we  were  not  indebted  to  the  birch-tree  for 
our  guide.  Uncle  Nathan,  as  he  was  known  in  all  the 
country,  yet  he  matched  well  these  woodsy  products 
and  conveniences.  The  birch-tree  had  given  him  a 
large  part  of  his  tuition,  and  kneeling  in  his  canoe 
and  making  it  shoot  noiselessly  over  the  water  with 
that  subtle  yet  indescribably  expressive  and  athletic 
play  of  the  muscles  of  the  back  and  shoulders,  the 
boat  and  the  man   seemed  born  o£  the  same  spirit. 


A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH.  45 

He  had  been  a  hunter  and  trapper  for  over  forty 
years ;  he  had  grown  gray  in  the  woods,  had  ripened 
and  matured  there,  and  everything  about  him  was  as  if 
the  spirit  of  the  woods  had  had  the  ordering  of  it ;  his 
whole  make-up  was  in  a  minor  and  subdued  key,  like 
the  moss  and  the  lichens,  or  like  the  protective  color- 
ing of  the  game,  —  everything  but  his  quick  sense 
and  penetrative  glance.  He  was  as  gentle  and  modest 
as  a  girl ;  his  sensibilities  were  like  plants  that  grow 
in  the  shade.  The  woods  and  the  solitudes  had 
touched  him  with  their  own  softening  and  refining 
influence ;  had  indeed  shed  upon  his  soil  of  life  a 
rich  deep  leaf  mould  that  was  delightful,  and  that 
nursed,  half  concealed,  the  tenderest  and  wildest 
growths.  There  was  grit  enough  back  of  and  beneath 
it  all,  but  he  presented  none  of  the  rough  and  repel- 
ling traits  of  character  of  the  conventional  backwoods- 
man. In  the  spring  he  was  a  driver  of  logs  on  the 
Kennebec,  usually  having  charge  of  a  large  gang  of 
men  ;  in  the  winter  he  was  a  solitary  trapper  and 
hunter  in  the  forests. 

Our  first  glimpse  of  Maine  waters  was  Pleasant 
Pond,  which  we  found  by  following  a  white,  rapid, 
musical  stream  from  the  Kennebec  three  miles  back 
into  the  mountains.  Maine  waters  are  for  the  most 
part  dark-complexioned,  Indian-colored  streams,  but 
Pleasant  Pond  is  a  pale-face  among  them  both  in 
name  and  nature.  It  is  the  only  strictly  silver  lake  I 
ever  saw.  Its  waters  seem  almost  artificially  white 
and  brilliant,  though  of  remarkable  transparency.  I 
think  I  detected  minute  shining  motes  held  in  suspen- 
sion in  it.  As  for  the  trout  they  are  veritable  bars 
of  silver  until  you  have  cut  their  flesh,  when  they  are 
the  reddest  of  gold.     They  have  no  crimson  or  other 


46  A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH. 

spots,  and  tlie  straight  lateral  line  is  but  a  faint  pencil 
mark.  They  appeared  to  be  a  species  of  lake  trout 
peculiar  to  these  waters,  uniformly  from  ten  to  twelve 
inches  in  length.  And  these  beautiful  fish,  at  the  time 
of  our  visit  (last  of  August)  at  least,  were  to  be 
taken  only  in  deep  water  upon  a  hook  baited  with  salt 
pork.  And  then  you  needed  a  letter  of  introduction 
to  them.  They  were  not  to  be  tempted  or  cajoled  by 
strangers.  We  did  not  succeed  in  raising  a  fish,  al- 
though instructed  how  it  was  to  be  done,  until  one  of 
the  natives,  a  young  and  obliging  farmer  living  hard 
by,  came  and  lent  his  countenance  to  the  enterprise. 
I  sat  in  one  end  of  the  boat  and  he  in  the  other ;  my 
pork  was  the  same  as  his,  and  I  manoeuvred  it  as 
directed,  and  yet  those  fish  knew  his  hook  from  mine 
in  sixty  feet  of  water,  and  preferred  it  four  times  in 
five.  Evidently  they  did  not  bite  because  they  were 
hungry,  but  solely  for  old  acquaintance'  sake. 

Pleasant  Pond  is  an  irregular  sheet  of  water,  two 
miles  or  more  in  its  greatest  diameter,  with  high,  rug- 
ged mountains  rising  up  from  its  western  shore,  and 
low  rolling  hills  sweeping  back  from  its  eastern  and 
northern,  covered  by  a  few  sterile  farms.  I  was  never 
tired,  when  the  wind  was  still,  of  floating  along  its 
margin  and  gazing  down  into  its  marvelously  trans- 
lucent depths.  The  bowlders  and  fragments  of  rocks 
were  seen,  at  a  depth  of  twenty-five  or  thirty  feet, 
strewing  its  floor,  and  apparently  as  free  from  any 
covering  of  sediment  as  when  they  were  dropped  there 
by  the  old  glaciers  seons  ago.  Our  camp  was  amid  a 
dense  grove  of  second  growth  of  white  pine  on  the 
eastern  shore,  where,  for  one,  I  found  a  most  admi. 
fable  cradle  in  a  little  depression,  outside  of  the  tent, 
carpeted  with  pine  needles,  in  which  to  pass  the  night* 


A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH.  47 

The  camper-out  is  always  in  luck  if  lie  can  find,  she!* 
tered  by  the  trees,  a  soft  hole  in  the  ground,  even  if 
he  has  a  stone  for  a  pillow.  The  earth  must  open  its 
arms  a  little  for  us  even  in  life,  if  we  are  to  sleep 
well  upon  its  bosom.  I  have  often  heard  my  grand- 
father,  who  was  a  soldier  of  the  Revolution,  tell  with 
great  guato  how  he  once  bivouacked  in  a  little  hollow 
made  by  the  overturning  of  a  tree,  and  slept  so' 
soundly  that  he  did  not  wake  up  till  his  cradle  was 
half  full  of  water  from  a  passing  shower. 

What  bird  or  other  creature  might  represent  the 
divinity  of  Pleasant  Pond  I  do  not  know,  but  its 
demon,  as  of  most  northern  inland  waters,  is  the  loon ; 
and  a  very  good  demon  he  is  too,  suggesting  some- 
thing not  so  much  malevolent,  as  arch,  sardonic,  ubi- 
quitous, circumventing,  with  just  a  tinge  of  something 
inhuman  and  uncanny.  His  fi<3ry  red  eyes  gleaming 
forth  from  that  jet-black  head  are  full  of  meaning. 
Then  his  strange  horse  laughter  by  day  and  his  weird, 
doleful  cry  at  night,  like  that  of  a  lost  and  wandering 
spirit,  recall  no  other  bird  or  beast.  He  suggests 
something  almost  supernatural  in  his  alertness  and 
amazing  quickness,  cheating  the  shot  and  the  bullet  of 
the  sportsman  out  of  their  aim.  I  know  of  but  one 
other  bird  so  quick,  and  that  is  the  humming-bird, 
which  I  have  never  been  able  to  kill  with  a  gun.  The 
loon  laughs  the  shot-gun  to  scorn,  and  the  obliging 
young  farmer  above  referred  to  told  me  he  had  shot 
at  them  hundreds  of  times  with  his  rifle,  without 
effect,  —  they  always  dodged  his  bullet.  We  had  in 
our  party  a  breach-loading  rifle,  which  weapon  is  per- 
haps an  appreciable  moment  of  time  quicker  than  the 
ordinary  muzzle  loader,  and  this  the  poor  loon  could 
^ot  or  did  not  dodge.     He  had  not  timed  himself  to 


48  A    TASTE   OF  MAINE   BIRCH. 

that  species  of  fire-arm,  and  when,  with  his  fellow,  he 
swam  about  within  rifle  range  of  our  camp,  letting  off 
volleys  of  his  wild  ironical  ha-ha,  he  little  suspected 
the   dangerous  gun   that   was   matched    against   him. 
As  the  rifle  cracked  both  loons  made  the  gesture  of. 
diving,  but  only  one  of  them  disappeared  beneath  the 
water ;  and  when  he  came   to  the   surface  in  a  few 
moments,  a  hundred  or  more  yards  away,  and  saw  his 
'companion  did  not  follow,   but  was  floating  on  the 
water  where  he  had  last  seen  him,  he  took  the  alarm 
and  sped  away  in  the  distance.     The  bird  I  had  killed 
was  a  magnificent  specimen,  and  I  looked  him  over 
with  great  interest.     His  glossy  checkered  coat,  his 
banded  neck,  his  snow-white  breast,  his  powerful  lance- 
shaped  beak,   his   red   eyes,  his  black,  thin,   slender, 
marvelously  delicate  feet  and  legs,   issuing   from  his 
muscular   thighs,  and  looking  as  if    they  had   never 
touched  the  ground,  his  strong  wings  well  forward, 
while  his  legs  were  quite  at  the  apex,  and  the  neat, 
elegant  model  of  the  entire  bird,  speed  and  quickness 
and  strength  stamped  upon  every  feature,  —  all   de- 
lighted and  lingered  in  the  eye.     The   loon   appears 
like  anything  but  a  silly  bird,  unless  you  see  him  in 
some   collection,   or  in  the  vshop   of  the  taxidermist, 
where   he    usually    looks    very    tame    and    goose-like« 
Nature  never  meant  the  loon  to  stand  up,  or  to  use 
his  feet  and  legs  for  other  purposes  than  swimming. 
Indeed,  he  cannot  stand  except  upon  his  tail  in  a  per- 
pendicular attitude,  but  in  the  collections  he  is  poised 
upon  his  feet  like  a  barn-yard  fowl,  all  the  wildness, 
and  grace  and  alertness  goes  out  of  him.     My  speci- 
men  sits    upon  a  table  as  upon   the   surface  of  the 
water,  his  feet  trailing  behind  him,  his  body  low  and 
trim,  his  head  elevated  and  slightly  turned  as  if  in  the 


A    TASTE   OF   MAINE  BIRCH.  49 

act  o£  bringing  that  fiery  eye  to  bear  upon  you,  and 
vigilance  and  power  stamped  upon  every  lineament. 

The  loon  is  to  the  fishes  what  the  hawk  is  to  the 
birds ;  he  swoops  down  to  unknown  depths  upon 
them,  and  not  even  the  wary  trout  can  elude  him. 
Uncle  Nathan  said  he  had  seen  the  loon  disappear, 
and  in  a  moment  come  up  with  a  large  trout,  which 
he  would  cut  in  two  with  his  strong  beak,  and  swal- 
low piecemeal.  Neither  the  loon  nor  the  otter  can 
bolt  a  fish  under  the  water ;  he  must  come  to  the  sur- 
face to  dispose  of  it.  (I  once  saw  a  man  eat  a  cake 
under  water  in  London.)  Our  guide  told  me  he  had 
seen  the  parent  loon  swimming  with  a  single  young 
one  upon  its  back.  When  closely  pressed  it  dove,  or 
"  div  "  as  he  would  have  it,  and  left  the  young  bird 
sitting  upon  the  water.  Then  it  too  disappeared,  and 
when  the  old  one  returned  and  called,  it  came  out  from 
the  shore.  On  the  wing  overhead,  the  loon  looks  not 
unlike  a  very  large  duck,  but  when  it  alights  it 
ploughs  into  the  water  like  a  bombshell.  It  probably 
cannot  take  flight  from  the  land,  as  the  one  Gilbert 
White  saw  and  describes  in  his  letters  was  picked  up 
in  a  field,  unable  to  launch  itself  into  the  air. 

From  Pleasant  Pond  we  went  seven  miles  through 
the  woods  to  Moxie  Lake,  following  an  overgrown 
lumberman's  "  tote "  road,  our  canoe  and  supplies, 
etc.,  hauled  on  a  sled  by  the  young  farmer  with  his 
three-year-old  steers.  I  doubt  if  birch-bark  ever  made 
a  rougher  voyage  than  that.  As  I  watched  it  above 
the  bushes,  the  sled  and  the  luggage  being  hidden,  it 
appeared  as  if  tossed  in  the  wildest  and  most  tempest- 
uous sea.  When  the  bushes  closed  above  it  I  felt  as 
if  it  had  gone  down,  or  been  broken  into  a  hundred 
pieces.     Billows  of   rocks   and   logs,  and   chasms   of 


50  A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH. 

creeks  and  spring  runs,  kept  it  rearing  and  pitcking 
m  the  most  frightful  manner.  The  steers  went  at  a 
spanking  pace ;  indeed,  it  was  a  regular  bovine  gale  ; 
but  their  driver  clung  to  their  side  amid  the  brush 
and  bowlders  with  desperate  tenacity,  and  seemed  to 
manage  them  by  signs  and  nudges,  for  he  hardly  ut- 
tered his  orders  aloud.  But  we  got  through  without 
any  serious  mishap,  passing  Mosquito  Creek  and  Mos- 
quito Pond,  and  flanking  Mosquito  Mountain,  but  see- ' 
ing  no  mosquitoes,  and  brought  up  at  dusk  at  a  lum- 
berman's old  hay-barn,  standing  in  the  midst  of  a 
lonely  clearing  on  the  shores  of  Moxie  Lake. 

Here  we  passed  the  night,  and  were  lucky  in  hav- 
ing a  good  roof  over  our  heads,  for  it  rained  heavily. 
After  we  were  rolled  in  our  blankets  and  variously 
disposed  upon  the  haymow,  Uncle  Nathan  lulled  us  to 
sleep  by  a  long  and  characteristic  jSivn. 

I  had  asked  him,  half  jocosely,  if  he  believed  in 
"  spooks  "  ;  but  he  took  my  question  seriously,  and 
without  answering  it  directly,  proceeded  to  tell  us 
what  he  himself  had  known  and  witnessed.  It  was, 
by  the  way,  extremely  difficult  either  to  surprise  or  to 
steal  upon  any  of  Uncle  Nathan's  private  opinions 
and  beliefs  about  matters  and  things.  He  was  as  shy 
of  all  debatable  subjects  as  a  fox  is  of  a  trap.  He 
usually  talked  in  a  circle,  just  as  he  hunted  moose  and 
caribou,  so  as  not  to  approach  his  point  too  rudely 
and  suddenly.  He  would  keep  on  the  lee  side  of  his 
interlocutor  in  spite  of  all  one  could  do.  He  was 
thoroughly  good  and  reliable,  but  the  wild  creatures 
of  the  woods,  in  pursuit  of  which  he  had  spent  so 
much  of  his  life,  had  taught  him  a  curious  gentleness 
and  indirection,  and  to  keep  himself  in  the  back« 
ground ;  he  was  careful  that  you  should  not  scent  his 


A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH.  51 

opinions  upon  any  subject  at  all  polemic,  but  he  would 
tell  you  what  he  had  seen  and  known.     What  he  had 

seen  and  known  about  spooks  was  briefly  this  : In 

company  with  a  neighbor  he  was  passing  the  nio-ht 
with    an   old    recluse    who  lived   somewhere  in  these 
woods.     Their  host  was  an  Englishman,  who  had  the 
reputation  of  having  murdered  his  wife  some  years  be- 
fore in  another  part  of  the  country,  and,  deserted  by 
his  grown-up  children,  was  eking  out  his  days  in  pov- 
erty amid  these  solitudes.      The  three  men  were  sleep- 
ing upon  the  floor,  with  Uncle  Nathan  next  to  a  rude 
partition  that  divided  the  cabin  into  two  rooms.     At 
his  head  there  was  a  door  that  opened  into  this  other 
apartment.     Late   at   night.   Uncle   Nathan  said,  he 
awoke  and  turned  over,  and  his  mind  was  occupied 
with  various  things,  when  he  heard  somebody  behind 
the  partition.     He  reached  over  and  felt  that  both  of 
his  companions  were  in  their  places  beside  him,  and 
he  was  somewhat  surprised.     The  person,  or  whatever 
it  was,  in  the  other  room  moved  about  heavily,  and 
pulled  the  table  from  its  place  beside  the  wall  to  the 
middle   of  the  floor.      "  I   was  not  dreaming,"   said 
Uncle  Nathan ;   "  I  felt  of  my  eyes  twice  to   make 
sure,  and  they  were  wide  open."     Presently  the  door 
opened ;  he  was  sensible  of  the  draught  upon  his  head, 
and  a  woman's  form  stepped  heavily  past  him ;  he 
felt  the  "  swirl  "  of  her  skirts  as  she  went  by.     Then 
there  was  a  loud  noise  in  the  foom  as  if  some  one  had 
fallen  their  whole  length  upon  the  floor.     "  It  jarred 
the  house,"  said  he,  "  and  woke  everybody  up.   I  asked 

old  Mr. if  he  heard  that  noise.     *  Yes,'  said  he, 

'  it  was  thunder.*  But  it  w^as  not  thunder,  I  know 
that ; "  and  then  added,  "  I  was  no  more  afraid  than  I 
am  this  minute.     I  never  was  the  least  mite  afraid 


62  A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH. 

in  my  life.  And  my  eyes  were  wide  open,"  he  re- 
peated ;  "  I  felt  of  them  twice  ;  but  whether  that  was 
the  speret  of  that  man's  murdered  wife  or  not  I  can- 
not tell.  They  said  she  was  an  uncommon  heavy 
woman."  Uncle  Nathan  was  a  man  of  unusually 
quick  and  acute  senses,  and  he  did  not  doubt  their 
evidence  on  this  occasion  any  more  than  he  did  when 
they  prompted  him  to  level  his  rifle  at  a  bear  or  a 
moose. 

Moxie  Lake  lies  much  lower  than  Pleasant  Pond, 
and  its  waters  compared  with  those  of  the  latter  are 
as  copper  compared  with  silver.  It  is  very  irregular 
in  shape ;  now  narrowing  to  the  dimensions  of  a  slov/ 
moving  grassy  creek,  then  expanding  into  a  broad 
deep  basin  with  rocky  shores,  and  commanding  the 
noblest  mountain  scenery.  It  is  rarely  that  the  pond- 
lily  and  the  speckled  trout  are  found  together,  —  the 
fish  the  soul  of  the  purest  spring  water,  the  flower  the 
transfigured  spirit  of  the  dark  mud  and  slime  of  slug- 
gish summer  streams  and  ponds ;  yet  in  Moxie  they 
were  both  found  in  perfection.  Our  camp  was  amid 
the  birches,  poplars,  and  white  cedars  near  the  head  of 
the  lake,  where  the  best  fishing  at  this  season  was  to 
be  had.  Moxie  has  a  small  oval  head,  rather  shallow, 
but  bumpy  with  rocks ;  a  long,  deep  neck,  full  of 
springs,  where  the  trout  lie  ;  and  a  very  broad  chest, 
with  two  islands  tufted  with  pine-trees  for  breastSo 
We  swam  in  the  head,  we  fished  in  the  neck,  or  in  a 
small  section  of  it,  a  space  about  the  size  of  the 
Adam's  apple,  and  we  paddled  across  and  around  the 
broad  expanse  below.  Our  birch  bark  was  not  fin- 
ished and  christened  till  we  reached  Moxie.  The  ce- 
dar lining  was  completed  at  Pleasant  Pond,  where  we 
had  the  use  of  a  bateau,  but  the  rosin  was  not  applied 


A   TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH.  53 

to  the  seams  till  we  reached  this  lake.  When  I  knelt 
down  in  it  for  the  first  time  and  put  its  slender  ma- 
ple paddle  into  the  water,  it  sprang  away  with  such 
quickness  and  speed  that  it  disturbed  me  in  my  seat. 
I  had  spurred  a  more  restive  and  spirited  steed  than  I 
was  used  to.  In  fact,  I  had  never  been  in  a  craft  that 
sustained  so  close  a  relation  to  my  will,  and  was  so 
responsive  to  my  slightest  wish.  When  I  caught  my 
first  large  trout  from  it,  it  sympathized  a  little  too 
closely,  and  my  enthusiasm  started  a  leak,  which,  how- 
ever, with  a  live  coal  and  a  piece  of  rosin,  was  quickly 
mended.  You  cannot  perform  much  of  a  war-dance 
in  a  birch-bark  canoe :  better  wait  till  you  get  on  dry 
land.  Yet  as  a  boat  it  is  not  so  shy  and  "  ticklish  " 
as  I  had  imagined.  One  needs  to  be  on  the  alert,  as 
becomes  a  sportsman  and  an  angler,  and  in  his  deal- 
ings with  it  must  charge  himself  with  three  things,  — 
precision,  moderation,  and  circumspection. 

Trout  weighing  four  and  five  pounds  have  been 
taken  at  Moxie,  but  none  of  that  size  came  to  our  hand. 
I  realized  the  fondest  hopes  I  had  dared  to  indulge  in 
when  I  hooked  the  first  two-pounder  of  my  life,  and 
my  extreme  solicitude  lest  he  get  away  I  trust  was  par- 
donable. My  friend,  in  relating  the  episode  in  camp, 
said  I  implored  him  to  row  me  down  in  the  middle  of 
the  lake  that  I  might  have  room  to  manoeuvre  my  fish. 
But  the  slander  has  barely  a  grain  of  truth  in  it.  The 
water  near  us  showed  several  old  stakes  broken  oif 
just  below  the  surface,  and  my  fish  was  determined  to 
wrap  my  leader  about  one  of  these  stakes ;  it  was  only 
for  the  clear  space  a  few  yards  farther  out  that  I 
prayed.  It  was  not  long  after  that  my  friend  found 
himself  in  an  anxious  frame  of  mind.  He  hooked  a 
large  trout,  which  came  home  on  him  so  suddenly  that 


64  A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH. 

he  had  not  time  to  reel  up  his  line,  and  in  his  extrem* 
ity  he  stretched  his  tall  form  into  the  air  and  lifted 
up  his  pole  to  an  incredible  height.  He  checked  the 
trout  before  it  got  under  the  boat,  but  dared  not  come 
down  an  inch,  and  then  began  his  amusing  further 
elongation  in  reaching  for  his  reel  with  one  hands 
while  he  carried  it  ten  feet  into  the  air  with  the  other. 
A  step-ladder  would  perhaps  have  been  more  welcome 
to  him  just  then  than  at  any  other  moment  during  his 
life.  But  the  trout  was  saved,  though  my  friend's  but- 
tons and  suspenders  suffered. 

We  learned  a  new  trick  in  fly-fishing  here,  worth 
disclosing.     It  was  not  one  day  in  four  that  the  trout 
would  take  the  fly  on  the  surface.     When  the  south 
wind  was  blowing  and  the  clouds  threatened  rain,  they 
would  at  times,  notably  about  three  o'clock,  rise  hand- 
somely.    But  on  all  other  occasions  it  was  rarely  that 
we  could  entice  them  up  through  the  twelve  or  fifteen 
feet  of  water.     Earlier  in  the  season  they  are  not  so 
lazy   and   indifferent,   but    the    August   languor   and 
drowsiness  were  now  upon  them.     So  we  learned  by 
a  lucky  accident  to  fish  deep  for  them,  even  weighting 
our  leaders  with  a  shot,  and  allowing  the  flies  to  sink 
nearly  to  the  bottom.     After  a  moment's  pause  we 
would  draw  them  slowly  up,  and  when  half  or  two 
thirds  of  the  way  to  the  top  the  trout  would   strike, 
i  when  the  sport  became  lively  enough.     Most  of  our 
fish  were  taken  in  this  way.     There  is  nothing  like 
the  flash  and  the  strike  at  the  surface,  and  perhaps 
only  the  need  of   food  will  ever  tempt  the  genuine 
angler  into  any  more  prosaic  style  of  fishing ;  but  if 
you  must  go  below  the  surface,  a  shotted  leader  is  the 
best  thing  to  use. 

Our  camp-fire  at  night  served  more  purposes  tlan 


A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH.  55 

one ;  from  its  embers  and  flickering  shadows,  Uncle 
Nathan  read  us  many  a  tale  of  his  life  in  the  woods. 
They  were  the  same  old  hunter's  stories,  except  that 
they  evidently  had  the  merit  of  being  strictly  true, 
and  hence  were  not  very  thrilling  or  marvelous.  Uncle 
Nathan's  tendency  was  rather  to  tone  down  and  be- 
little his  experiences  than  to  exaggerate  them.     If  he 

-ever  bragged  at  all  (and  I  suspect  he  did  just  a  little,, 
when  telling  us  how  he  outshot  one  of  the  famous 
riflemen  of  the  American  team,  whom  he  was  guiding 
through  these  woods),  he  did  it  in  such  a  sly,  round- 
about way  that  it  was  hard  to  catch  him  at  it.  His 
passage  with  the  rifleman  referred  to  shows  the  dif- 
ference between  the  practical  off-hand  skill  of  the 
hunter  in  the  woods  and  the  science  of  the  long-range 
target  hitter.  Mr.  Bull's  Eye  had  heard  that  his  guide 
was  a  capital  shot  and  had  seen  some  proof  of  it,  and 
hence  could  not  rest  till  he  had  had  a  trial  of  skill  with 
him.  Uncle  Nathan,  being  the  challenged  party,  had 
the  right  to  name  the  distance  and  the  conditions. 
A  piece  of  white  paper  the  size  of  a  silver  dollar  was 
put  upon  a  tree  twelve  rods  off,  the  contestants  to  fire 
three  shots  each  off-hand.  Uncle  Nathan's  first  bullet 
barely  missed  the  mark,  but  the  other  two  were  planted 
well  into  it.  Then  the  great  rifleman  took  his  turn,  and 
missed  every  time. 

I      "  By  hemp  !  "   said  Uncle  Nathan,  "  I  was  sorry  I 

shot  so  well,  Mr. took  it  so  to  heart ;  and  I  had 

used  his  own  rifle,  too.  He  did  not  get  over  it  for  a 
week." 

But  far  more  ignominious  was  the  failure  of  Mr. 
Bull's  Eye  when  he  saw  his  first  bear.  They  were 
paddling  slowly  and  silently  down  Dead  River,  when 
the  guide  heard  a  slight  noise  in  the  bushes  just  be* 


56  A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH. 

hind  a  little  bend.  He  whispered  to  the  rifleman,  who 
sat  kneeling  in  the  bow  of  the  boat,  to  take  his  rifle. 
But  instead  of  doing  so  he  picked  up  his  two-barreled 
shot-gun.  As  they  turned  the  point,  there  stood  a 
bear  not  twenty  yards  away,  drinking  from  the  stream. 
[Jncle  Nathan  held  the  canoe,  while  the  man  who  had 
come  so  far  in  quest  of  this  ver}'^  game  was  trying  to 
lay  down  his  shot-gun  and  pick  up  his  rifle.  ''  His 
hand  moved  like  the  hand  of  a  clock,"  said  Uncle 
Nathan,  ''  and  I  could  hardly  keep  my  seat.  I  knew 
the  bear  would  see  us  in  a  moment  more,  and  run." 
Instead  of  laying  his  gun  by  his  side,  where  it  be- 
longed, he  reached  it  across  in  front  of  him  and  laid 
it  upon  his  rifle,  and  in  trying  to  get  the  latter  from 
under  it  a  noise  was  made  ;  the  bear  heard  it  and 
raised  his  head.  Still  there  was  time,  for  as  the  bear 
sprang  into  the  woods  he  stopped  and  looked  back,  — 
"  as  I  knew  he  would,"  said  the  guide ;  yet  the  marks- 
man was  not  ready.  "  By  hemp  !  I  could  have  shot 
three  bears,"  exclaimed  Uncle  Nathan,  "  while  he  was 
getting  that  rifle  to  his  face  !  " 

Poor  Mr.  Bull's  Eye  was  deeply  humiliated.  "Just 
the  chance  I  had  been  looking  for,"  he  said,  "  and  my 
wits  suddenly  left  me." 

As  a  hunter  Uncle  Nathan  always  took  the  game 
on  its  own  terms,  that  of  still-hunting.  He  even  shot 
foxes  in  this  way,  going  into  the  fields  in  the  fall  just! 
at  break  of  day,  and  watching  for  them  about  their 
mousing  haunts.  One  morning,  by  these  tactics,  he 
shot  a  black  fox  ;  a  fine  specimen,  he  said,  and  a  wild 
one,  for  he  stopped  and  looked  and  listened  every  few 
yards. 

He  had  killed  over  two  hundred  moose,  a  large 
number  of  them  at  night  on  the  lakes.     His  method 


A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH.  57 

was  to  go  out  in  his  canoe  and  conceal  himself  by 
some  point  or  island,  and  wait  till  he  heard  the  game. 
In  the  fail  the  moose  comes  into  the  water  to  eat  the 
large  fibrous  roots  of  the  pond  -  lilies.  He  splashes 
along  till  he  finds  a  suitable  spot,  when  he  begins  feed* 
mg,  sometimes  thrusting  his  head  and  neck  several 
feet  under  water.  The  hunter  listens,  and  when  the 
moose  lifts  his  head  and  the  rills  of  water  run  from 
it,  and  he  hears  him  "  swash  "  the  lily  roots  about  to 
get  off  the  mud,  it  is  his  time  to  start.  Silently  as  a 
shadow  he  creeps  up  on  the  moose,  who  by  the  way, 
it  seems,  never  expects  the  approach  of  danger  from 
the  water  side.  If  the  hunter  accidentally  makes  {^ 
noise  the  moose  looks  toward  the  shore  for  it.  Ther'* 
is  always  a  slight  gleam  on  the  water.  Uncle  Natha:i 
says,  even  in  the  darkest  night,  and  the  dusky  forpi 
of  the  moose  can  be  distinctly  seen  upon  it.  When 
the  hunter  sees  this  darker  shadow  he  lifts  his  gun  to 
the  sky  and  gets  the  range  of  its  barrels,  then  lowers 
it  till  it  covers  the  mark,  and  fires. 

The  largest  moose  Uncle  Nathan  ever  killed  is 
mounted  in  the  State  House  at  Augusta.  He  shot 
him  while  hunting  in  winter  on  snow-shoes.  The 
moose  was  reposing  upon  the  ground,  with  his  head 
stretched  out  in  front  of  him,  as  one  may  sometimes 
see  a  cow  resting.  The  position  was  such  that  only 
a  quartering  shot  through  the  animal's  hip  could  reach 
its  heart.  Studying  the  problem  carefully,  and  taking 
his  own  time,  the  hunter  fired.  The  moose  sprang 
into  the  air,  turned,  and  came  with  tremendous  strides 
straight  toward  him.  "  I  knew  he  had  not  seen  or 
scented  me,"  said  Uncle  Nathan,  "  but,  by  hemp,  I 
wished  myself  somewhere  else  just  then ;  for  I  was 
lying  right  down  in  his  path."     But  the  noble  animal 


68  A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH. 

stopped  a  few  yards  short,  and  fell  dead' with  a  bullet* 
hole  through  his  heart. 

When  the  moose  yard  in  the  winter,  that  is,  restrict 
their  wanderings  to  a  well-defined  section  of  the  forest 
or  mountain,  trampling  down  the  snow  and  beating 
paths  in  all  directions,  they  browse  off  only  the  most 
dainty  morsels  first ;  when  they  go  over  the  ground  a 
second  time  they  crop  a  little  cleaner ;  the  third  time 
they  sort  still  closer,  till  by  and  by  nothing  is  left. 
Spruce,  hemlock,  poplar,  the  barks  of  various  trees, 
everything  within  reach,  is  cropped  close.  When  the 
hunter  comes  upon  one  of  these  yards  the  problem  for 
him  to  settle  is.  Where  are  the  moose  ?  for  it  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  that  he  keep  on  the  lee  side  of  them. 
So  he  considers  the  lay  of  the  land,  the  direction  of 
the  wind,  the  time  of  day,  the  depth  of  the  snow,  ex- 
amines the  spoor,  the  cropped  twigs,  and  studies  every 
hint  and  clew  like  a  detective.  Uncle  Nathan  said  he 
could  not  explain  to  another  how  he  did  it,  but  he 
could  usually  tell  in  a  few  minutes  in  what  direction 
to  look  for  the  game.  His  experience  had  ripened 
into  a  kind  of  intuition  or  winged  reasoning  that  was 
above  rules. 

He  said  that  most  large  game,  deer,  caribou,  moose, 
bear,  when  started  by  the  hunter  and  not  much 
scared,  were  sure  to  stop  and  look  back  before  disap=> 
pearing  from  sight :  he  usually  waited  for  this  last 
and  best  chance  to  fire.  He  told  us  of  a  huge  bear 
he  had  seen  one  morning  while  still-hunting  foxes  in 
the  fields ;  the  bear  saw  him,  and  got  iiito  the  woods 
before  he  could  get  a  good  shot.  In  her  course  some 
distance  up  the  mountain  was  a  bald,  open  spot,  and 
he  felt  sure  when  she  crossed  this  spot  she  would 
pause  and   look  behind  her ;  and  sure  enough,  like 


A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH.  59 

Lot's  wife,  her  curiosity  got  the  better  of  her;  she 
stopped  to  have  a  final  look,  and  her  travels  ended 
there  and  then. 

Uncle  Nathan  had  trapped  and  shot  a  great  many 
bears,  and  some  of  his  experiences  revealed  an  un- 
usual degree  of  sagacity  in  this  animal.  One  April, 
when  the  weather  began  to  get  warm  and  thawy,  an 
old  bear  left  her  den  in  the  rocks  and  built  a  large, 
warm  nest  of  grass,  leaves,  and  the  bark  of  the  white 
cedar,  under  a  tall  balsam  fir  that  stood  in  a  low, 
sunny,  open  place  amid  the  mountains.  Hither  she 
conducted  her  two  cubs,  and  the  family  began  life  in 
what  might  be  called  their  spring  residence.  The 
tree  above  them  was  for  shelter,  and  for  refuge  for 
the  cubs  in  case  danger  approached,  as  it  soon  did  in 
the  form  of  Uncle  Nathan.  He  happened  that  way 
soon  after  the  bear  had  moved.  Seeing  her  track  in 
the  snow,  he  concluded  to  follow  it.  When  the  bear 
had  passed,  the  snow  had  been  soft  and  sposhy,  and 
she  had  "  slumped,"  he  said,  several  inches.  It  was 
now  hard  and  slippery.  As  he  neared  the  tree  the 
track  turned  and  doubled,  and  tacked  this  way  and 
that,  and  led  through  the  worst  brush  and  brambles 
to  be  found.  This  was  a  shrewd  thought  of  the  old 
bear ;  she  could  thus  hear  her  enemy  coming  a  long 
time  before  he  drew  very  near.  When  Uncle  Nathan 
finally  reached  the  nest,  he  found  it  empty,  but  still 
warm.  Then  he  began  to  circle  about  and  look  for 
the  bear's  footprints  or  nail-prints  upon  the  frozen 
snow.  Not  finding  them  the  first  time,  he  took  a 
larger  circle,  then  a  still  larger;  finally  he  made  a 
long  detour^  and  spent  nearly  an  hour  searching  for 
some  clew  to  the  direction  the  bear  had  taken,  but  all 
to  no  purpose.     Then  he  returned  to  the  tree  and 


60  A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH. 

scrutinized  it.  The  foliage  was  very  dense,  but  pres» 
eiitly  he  made  out  one  of  the  cubs  near  the  top,  stand* 
ing  up  amid  the  branches,  and  peering  down  at  him. 
This  he  killed.  Further  search  only  revealed  a  mass 
of  foliage  apparently  more  dense  than  usual,  but  a 
bullet  sent  into  it  was  followed  by  loud  whimpering 
and  crying,  and  the  other  baby  bear  came  tumbling 
down.  In  leaving  the  place,  greatly  puzzled  as  to 
what  had  become  of  the  mother  bear.  Uncle  Nathan 
followed  another  of  her  frozen  tracks,  and  after  about 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  saw  beside  it,  upon  the  snow,  the 
fresh  trail  he  had  been  in  search  of.  In  making  her 
escape  the  bear  had  stepped  exactly  in  her  old  tracks 
that  were  hard  and  icy,  and  had  thus  left  no  mark  till 
she  took  to  the  snow  again. 

During  his  trapping  expeditions  into  the  woods  in 
midwinter,  I  was  curious  to  know  how  Uncle  Nathan 
passed  the  nights,  as  we  were  twice  pinched  with  the 
cold  at  that  season  in  our  tent  and  blankets.  It  was 
no  trouble  to  keep  warm,  he  said,  in  the  coldest 
weather.  As  night  approached,  he  would  select  a 
place  for  his  camp  on  the  side  of  a  hill.  With  one  of 
his  snow-shoes  he  would  shovel  out  the  snow  till  the 
ground  was  reached,  carrying  the  snow  out  in  front, 
as  we  scrape  the  earth  out  of  the  side  of  a  hill  to  level 
up  a  place  for  the  house  and  yard.  On  this  level 
place,  which,  however,  was  made  to  incline  slightly 
toward  the  hill,  his  bed  of  boughs  was  made.  On  the 
ground  he  had  uncovered  he  built  his  fire.  His  bed 
was  thus  on  a  level  with  the  fire,  and  the  heat  could 
not  thaw  the  snow  under  him  and  let  him  down,  or 
the  bdrning  logs  roll  upon  him.  AVith  a  steep  ascent 
behind  it  the  fire  burned  better,  and  the  wind  was  not 
80  apt  to  drive  the  smoke  and  blaze  in  upon  him. 


A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH.  61 

Then,  with  the  long,  curving  branches  of  the  spruce 
stuck  thickly  around  three  sides  of  the  bed,  and  curv<= 
ing  over  and  uniting  their  tops  above  it,  a  shelter  was 
formed  that  would  keep  out  the  cold  and  the  snow, 
and  that  would  catch  and  retain  the  warmth  of  the  fire. 
Rolled  in  his  blanket  in  such  a  nest.  Uncle  Nathan 
had  passed  hundreds  of  the  most  frigid  winter  nights,  i 

One  day  we  made  an  excursion  of  three  miles 
through  the  woods  to  Bald  Mountain,  following  a  dim 
trail.  We  saw,  as  we  filed  silently  along,  plenty  of 
signs  of  caribou,  deer,  and  bear,  but  were  not  blessed 
with  a  siofht  of  either  of  the  animals  themselves.  I 
noticed  that  Uncle  Nathan,  in  looking  through  the 
woods,  did  not  hold  his  head  as  we  did,  but  thrust  it 
slightly  forward,  and  peered  under  the  branches  like 
a  deer  or  other  wild  creature. 

The  summit  of  Bald  Mountain  was  the  most  im- 
pressive mountain-top  I  had  ever  seen,  mainly,  per- 
haps, because  it  was  one  enormous  crown  of  nearly 
naked  granite.  The  rock  had  that  gray,  elemental, 
eternal  look  which  granite  alone  has.  One  seemed  to 
be  face  to  face  with  the  gods  of  the  fore-world.  Like 
an  atom,  like  a  breath  of  to-day,  we  were  suddenly 
confronted  by  abysmal  geologic  time,  —  the  eternities 
past  and  the  eternities  to  come.  The  enormous  cleav- 
age of  the  rocks,  the  appalling  cracks  and  fissures,  the 
rent  bowlders,  the  smitten  granite  floors,  gave  one  a 
new  sense  of  the  power  of  heat  and  frost.  In  one 
place  we  noticed  several  deep  parallel  grooves,  made 
by  the  old  glaciers.  In  the  depressions  on  the  sum- 
mit there  was  a  hard,  black,  peaty-like  soil  that  looked 
indescribably  ancient  and  unfamiliar.  Out  of  this 
mould,  that  might  have  come  from  the  moon  or  the 
interplanetary  spaces,  were  growing  mountain  cran- 


62  A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH. 

berries  and  blueberries  or  huckleberries.  We  were 
soon  so  absorbed  in  gathering  the  latter  that  we  were 
quite  oblivious  of  the  grandeurs  about  us.  It  is  these 
blueberries  that  attract  the  bears.  In  eating  them, 
Uncle  Nathan  said,  they  take  the  bushes  in  their 
!  mouths,  and  by  an  upward  movement  strip  them  clean 
,of  both  leaves  and  berries.  We  were  constantly  on 
the  lookout  for  the  bears,  but  failed  to  see  any.  Yet 
a  few  days  afterward,  when  two  of  our  party  returned 
here  and  encamped  upon  the  mountain,  they  saw  five 
during  their  stay,  but  failed  to  get  a  good  shot.  The 
rifle  was  in  the  wrong  place  each  time.  The  man 
with  the  shot-gun  saw  an  old  bear  and  two  cubs  lift 
themselves  from  behind  a  rock  and  twist  their  noses 
around  for  his  scent,  and  then  shrink  away.  They 
were  too  far  off  for  his  buckshot.  I  must  not  forget 
the  superb  view  that  lay  before  us,  a  wilderness  of 
woods  and  waters  stretching  away  to  the  horizon  on 
every  hand.  Nearly  a  dozen  lakes  and  ponds  could 
be  seen,  and  in  a  clearer  atmosphere  the  foot  of  Moose- 
head  Lake  would  have  been  visible.  The  highest  and 
most  striking  mountain  to  be  seen  was  Mount  Bige- 
low,  rising  above  Dead  River,  far  to  the  west,  and  its 
two  sharp  peaks  notching  the  horizon  like  enormous 
saw-teeth.  We  walked  around  and  viewed  curiously 
a  huge  bowlder  on  the  top  of  the  mountain  that  had 
been  split  in  two  vertically,  and  one  of  the  halves 
moved  a  few  feet  out  of  its  bed.  It  looked  recent 
and  familiar,  but  suggested  gods  instead  of  men.  The 
force  that  moved  the  rock  had  plainly  come  from  the 
north.  I  thought  of  a  similar  bowlder  I  had  seen  not 
long  before  on  the  highest  point  of  the  Shawangunk 
Mountains,  in  New  York,  one  side  of  which  is  propped 
up  with  a  large  stone,  as  wall-builders  prop  up  a  rock 


A    TASTE   OF  MAINE  BIRCH.  63 

to  wrap  a  chain  around  it.  The  rock  seems  poised 
lightly,  and  has  but  a  few  points  of  bearing.  In  this 
instance^  too,  the  power  had  come  from  the  north. 

The  prettiest  botanical  specimen  my  trip  yielded 
was  a  little  plant  that  bears  the  ugly  name  of  horned 
bladderwort  ( Utricular  la  cornuta),  and  which  I 
found  growing  in  marshy  places  along  the  shores  of 
Moxie  Lake.  It  has  a  slender,  naked  stem  nearly  a 
foot  high,  crowned  by  two  or  more  large  deep  yellow 
flowers,  —  flowers  the  shape  of  little  bonnets  or  hoods. 
One  almost  expected  to  see  tiny  faces  looking  out  of 
them.  This  illusion  is  heightened  by  the  horn  or  spur 
of  the  flower,  which  projects  from  the  hood  like  a  long 
tapering  chin,  —  some  masker's  device.  Then  the 
cape  behind,  —  what  a  smart  upward  curve  it  has, 
as  if  spurned  by  the  fairy  shoulders  it  was  meant  to 
cover  !  But  perhaps  the  most  notable  thing  about  the 
flower  was  its  fragrance,  —  the  richest  and  strongest 
perfume  I  have  ever  found  in  a  wild  flower.  This 
our  botanist.  Gray,  does  not  mention,  as  if  one  should 
describe  the  lark  and  forget  its  song.  The  fragrance 
suggested  that  of  white  clover,  but  was  more  rank  and 
spicy. 

The  woods  about  Moxie  Lake  were  literally  carpet- 
ed with  Linncea.  I  had  never  seen  it  in  such  profu- 
sion. In  early  summer,  the  period  of  its  bloom,  what 
a  charming  spectacle  the  mossy  floors  of  these  remote 
woods  must  present !  The  flowers  are  purple  rose- 
color,  nodding  and  fragrant.  Another  very  abundant 
plant  in  these  woods  was  the  Clintonia  horealis. 
Uncle  Nathan  said  it  was  called  "  bear's  corn,"  though 
he  did  not  know  why.  The  only  noticeable  flower  by 
the  Maine  roadsides  at  this  season  that  is  not  common 
in  other  parts  of  the  country  is   the   harebell.     Its 


64  A    TASTE    OF  MAINE   BIRCH. 

bright  blue,  bell-shaped  corolla  shone  out  from  amid 
the  dry  grass  and  weeds  all  along  the  route.  It  was 
one  of  the  most  delicate  roadside  flowers  I  had  ever 

seen. 

The  only  new  bird  I  saw  in  Maine  was  the  pileated 
woodpecker,  or  black  "  log  cock, "  called  by  Uncle 
Nathan  "wood  cock."  I  had  never  before  seen  or 
heard  this  bird,  and  its  loud  cackle  in  the  woods  about 
Moxie  was  a  new  sound  to  me.  It  is  the  wildest  and 
largest  of  our  northern  woodpeckers,  and  the  rarest. 
Its  voice  and  the  sound  of  its  hammer  are  heard  only 
in  the  depths  of  the  northern  woods.  It  is  about  as 
large  as  a  crow,  and  nearly  as  black. 

We  stayed  a  week  at  Moxie,  or  until  we  became 
surfeited  with  its  trout,  and  had  killed  the  last  Mer- 
ganser duck  that  lingered  about  our  end  of  the  lake. 
The  trout  that  had  accumulated  on  our  hands  we  had 
kept  alive  in  a  large  champagne  basket  submerged  in 
the  lake,  and  the  morning  we  broke  camp  the  basket 
was  towed  to  the  shore  and  opened ;  and  after  we  had 
feasted  our  eyes  upon  the  superb  spectacle,  every 
trout,  twelve  or  fifteen  in  number,  some  of  them  two- 
pounders,  was  allowed  to  swim  back  into  the  lake. 
They  went  leisurely,  in  couples  and  in  trios,  and  were 
soon  kicking  up  their  heels  in  their  old  haunts.  I  ex- 
pect  that  the  divinity  who  presides  over  Moxie  will 
see  to  it  that  every  one  of  those  trout,  doubled  in 
weisrht,  comes  to  our  basket  in  the  future. 


WINTER  NEIGHBORS. 

.  The  country  is  more  of  a  wilderness,  more  of  a 
wild  solitude,  in  the  winter  than  in  the  summer.  The 
wild  comes  out.  The  urban,  the  cultivated,  is  hidden 
or  negatived.  You  shall  hardly  know  a  good  field 
from  a  poor,  a  meadow  from  a  pasture,  a  park  from  a 
forest.  Lines  and  boundaries  are  disregarded  ;  gates 
and  bar-ways  are  unclosed ;  man  lets  go  his  hold  upon 
the  earth;  title-deeds  are  deep  buried  beneath  the 
snow;  the  best-kept  grounds  relapse  to  a  state  of 
nature;  under  the  pressure  of  the  cold  all  the  wild 
creatures  become  outlaws,  and  roam  abroad  beyond 
their  usual  haunts.  The  partridge  comes  to  the  or- 
chard  for  buds ;  the  rabbit  comes  to  the  garden  and 
lawn ;  the  crows  and  jays  come  to  the  ash-heap  and 
corn-crib,  the  snow-buntings  to  the  stack  and  to  the 
barn-yard ;  tne  sparrows  pilfer  from  the  domestic 
fowls ;  the  pine  grosbeak  comes  down  from  the  north 
and  shears  your  maples  of  their  buds  ;  the  fox  prowls 
about  your  premises  at  night,  and  the  red  squirrels 
find  your  grain  in  the  barn  or  steal  the  butternuts 
from  ycur  attic.  In  fact,  winter,  like  some  great  ca» 
lamity,  changes  the  status  of  most  creatures  and  sets 
them  adrift.  Winter,  like  poverty,  makes  us  ac- 
quainted with  strange  bedfellows. 

For  my  part,  my  nearest  approach  to  a  strange  bed- 
fellow is  the  little  gray  rabbit  that  has  taken  up  her 
abode  under  my  study  floor.     As  she  spends  the  day 


eQ  WINTER  NEIGHBORS. 

here  and  is  out  larking  at  night,  she  is  not  much  of  a 
bedfellow  after  all.  It  is  probable  that  I  disturb  her 
slumbers  more  than  she  does  mine.  I  think  she  is 
some  support  to  me  under  there  —  a  silent  wild-eyed 
witness  and  backer ;  a  type  of  the  gentle  and  harm- 
less in  savage  nature.  She  has  no  sagacity  to  give  ma 
or  lend  me,  but  that  soft,  nimble  foot  of  hers,  and 
that  touch  as  of  cotton  wherever  she  goes,  are  worthy 
of  emulation.  I  think  I  can  feel  her  good-will  through 
the  floor,  and  I  hope  she  can  mine.  When  I  have  a 
happy  thought  I  imagine  her  ears  twitch,  especially 
when  I  think  of  the  sweet  apple  I  will  place  by  her 
doorway  at  night.  I  wonder  if  that  fox  chanced 
to  catch  a  glimpse  of  her  the  other  night  when  he 
stealthily  leaped  over  the  fence  near  by  and  walked 
along  between  the  study  and  the  house  ?  How  clearly 
one  could  read  that  it  was  not  a  little  dog  that  had 
passed  there.  There  was  something  furtive  in  the 
track ;  it  shied  off  away  from  the  house  and  around  it, 
as  if  eying  it  suspiciously ;  and  then  it  had  the  caution 
and  deliberation  of  the  fox — bold,  bold,  but  not  too 
bold ;  wariness  was  in  every  footprint.  If  it  had  been 
a  little  dog  that  had  chanced  to  wander  that  way, 
when  he  crossed  my  path  he  would  have  followed  it 
up  to  the  barn  and  have  gone  smelling  around  for 
a  bone  ;  but  this  sharp,  cautious  track  held  straight 
a,cross  all  others,  keeping  five  or  six  rods  from  the 
house,  up  the  hill,  across  the  highway  towards  a 
neiffhborinsT  farmstead,  with  its  nose  in  the  air  and  its 
eye  and  ear  alert,  so  to  speak. 

A  winter  neighbor  of  mine  in  whom  I  am  inter- 
ested, and  who  perhaps  lends  me  his  support  after  his 
kind,  is  a  little  red  owl,  whose  retreat  is  in  the  heart 
of  an  old  apple-tree  just  over  the  fence.     Where  he 


WINTER   NEIGHBORS.  67 

keeps  himself  in  spring  and  summer  I  do  not  know, 
but  late  every  fall,  and  at  intervals  all  winter,  his 
hiding-place  is  discovered  by  the  jays  and  nut-hatches, 
and  proclaimed  from  the  tree-tops  for  the  space  of 
half  an  hour  or  so,  with  all  the  powers  of  voice  they 
can  command.  Four  times  during  one  winter  they 
called  me  out  to  behold  this  little  ogre  feigning  sleep 
in  his  den,  sometimes  in  one  apple-tree,  sometimes  in 
another.  Whenever  I  heard  their  cries,  I  knew  my 
neighbor  was  being  berated.  The  birds  would  take 
turns  at  looking  in  upon  him  and  uttering  their  alarm- 
notes.  Every  jay  within  hearing  would  come  to  the 
spot  and  at  once  approach  the  hole  in  the  trunk  or 
limb,  and  with  a  kind  of  breathless  eagerness  and  ex- 
citement take  a  peep  at  the  owl,  and  then  join  the 
outcry.  When  I  approached  they  would  hastily  take 
a  final  look  and  then  withdraw  and  regard  my  move- 
ments intently.  After  accustoming  my  eye  to  the 
faint  light  of  the  cavity  for  a  few  moments,  I  could 
usually  make  out  the  owl  at  the  bottom  feigning  sleep. 
Feigning,  I  say,  because  this  is  what  he  really  did,  as 
I  first  discovered  one  day  when  I  cut  into  his  retreat 
with  the  axe.  The  loud  blows  and  the  falling  chips 
did  not  disturb  him  at  all.  When  I  reached  in  a 
stick  and  pulled  him  over  on  his  side,  leaving  one  of 
his  wings  spread  out,  he  made  no  attempt  to  recover 
himself,  but  lay  among  the  chips  and  fragments  of 
decayed  wood,  like  a  part  of  themselves.  Indeed,  it 
took  a  sharp  eye  to  distinguish  him.  Nor  till  I  had 
pulled  him  forth  by  one  wing,  rather  rudely,  did  he 
abandon  his  trick  of  simulated  sleep  or  death.  Then, 
like  a  detected  pickpocket,  he  was  suddenly  trans- 
formed into  another  creature.  His  eyes  flew  wide 
open,  his  talons  clutched  my  finger,  his  ears  were  de- 


68  WINTER   NEIGHBORS. 

pressed,  and  every  motion  and  look  said,  "  Hands  off, 
at  your  peril."  Finding  this  game  did  not  work,  he 
soon  began  to  "  play  'possum  "  again.  I  put  a  cover 
over  my  study  wood-box  and  kept  him  captive  for  a 
week.  Look  in  upon  him  any  time,  night  or  day,  and 
he  was  apparently  wraj^ped  in  the  profoundest  slum- 
ber ;  but  the  live  mice  which  I  put  into  his  box  from 
time  to  time  found  his  sleep  was  easily  broken  ;  there 
would  be  a  sudden  rustle  in  the  box,  a  faint  squeak, 
and  then  silence.  After  a  week  of  captivity  I  gave 
him  his  freedom  in  the  full  sunshine :  no  trouble  for 
him  to  see  which  way  and  where  to  go. 

Just  at  dusk  in  the  winter  nights,  I  often  hear  his 
soft  hur-r-r-r^  very  pleasing  and  bell-like.  W^hat  a 
furtive,  woody  sound  it  is  in  the  winter  stillness,  so 
unlike  the  harsh  scream  of  the  hawk.  But  all  the 
ways  of  the  owl  are  ways  of  softness  and  duskiness. 
His  wings  are  shod  with  silence,  his  plumage  is  edged 
with  down. 

Another  owl  neighbor  of  mine,  with  whom  I  pass 
the  time  of  day  more  frequently  than  with  the  last, 
lives  farther  away.  I  pass  his  castle  every  night  on 
my  way  to  the  post-office,  and  in  winter,  if  the  hour 
is  late  enough,  am  pretty  sure  to  see  him  standing  in 
his  doorway,  surveying  the  passers-by  and  the  land- 
scape through  narrow  slits  in  his  eyes.  For  four  suc- 
cessive winters  now  have  I  observed  him.  As  the 
twilight  begins  to  deepen  he  rises  out  of  his  cavity 
in  the  apple-tree,  scarcely  faster  than  the  moon  rises 
from  behind  the  hill,  and  sits  in  the  opening,  com- 
pletely framed  by  its  outlines  of  gray  bark  and  dead 
wood,  and  by  his  protective  coloring  virtually  invisible 
to  every  eye  that  does  not  know  he  is  there.  Prob' 
ably  my  own  is  the  only  eye  that  has  ever  penetrated 


WINTER   NEIGHBORS.  69 

hiss  secret,  and  mine  never  would  have  done  so  had  1 
not  chanced  on  one  occasion  to  see  him  leave  his  re« 
treat  and  make  a  raid  upon  a  shrike  that  was  impal- 
ing a  shrew-mouse  upon  a  thorn  in  a  neighboring  tree, 
and  which  I  was  watching.  Failing  to  get  the  mouse, 
the  owl  returned  swiftly  to  his  cavity,  and  ever  since, 
while  going  that  way,  I  have  been  on  the  lookout  for 
him.  Dozens  of  teams  and  foot-passengers  pass  him 
late  in  the  day,  but  he  regards  them  not,  nor  they 
him.  When  I  come  alone  and  pause  to  salute  him, 
he  opens  his  eyes  a  little  wider,  and,  appearing  to 
recognize  me,  quickly  shrinks  and  fades  into  the  b;ick^ 
ground  of  his  door  in  a  very  weird  and  curious 
manner.  When  he  is  not  at  his  outlook,  or  when  he 
is,  it  requires  the  best  powers  of  the  eye  to  decide  the 
point,  as  the  empty  cavity  itself  is  almost  an  exact 
image  of  him.  If  the  whole  thing  had  been  carefully 
studied  it  could  not  have  answered  its  purpose  better. 
The  owl  stands  quite  perpendicular,  presenting  a  front 
of  light  mottled  gray ;  the  eyes  are  closed  to  a  mere 
slit,  the  ear-feathers  depressed,  the  beak  buried  in  the 
plumage,  and  the  whole  attitude  is  one  of  silent, 
motionless  waiting  and  observation.  If  a  mouse 
should  be  seen  crossing  the  highway,  or  scudding  over 
any  exposed  part  of  the  snowy  surface  in  the  twilight, 
the  owl  would  doubtless  swoop  down  upon  it.  I 
think  the  owl  has  learned  to  distinguish  me  from  the 
rest  of  the  passers-by  ;  at  least,  when  I  stop  before 
him,  and  he  sees  himself  observed,  he  backs  down  into 
his  den,  as  I  have  said,  in  a  very  amusing  manner. 
Whether  bluebirds,  nut -hatches,  and  chickadees  — 
birds  that  pass  the  night  in  cavities  of  trees  —  ever 
run  into  the  clutches  of  the  dozing  owl,  I  should  be 
glad  to  know.     My  impression  is,  however,  that  they 


70  WINTER   NEIGHBORS. 

seek  out  smaller  cavities.  An  old  willow  by  the  road- 
side blew  down  one  summer,  and  a  decayed  branch 
broke  open,  revealing  a  brood  of  half-fledged  owls, 
and  many  feathers  and  quills  of  bluebirds,  orioles,  and 
other  songsters,  showing  plainly  enough  why  all  birds 
fear  and  berate  the  owl. 

The  English  house  sparrows,  that  are  so  rapidly 
Increasing  among  us,  and  that  must  add  greatly  to  the 
food  supply  of  the  owls  and  other  birds  of  prey,  seek 
to  baffle  their  enemies  by  roosting  in  the  densest  ever- 
greens they  can  find,  in  the  arbor- vitae,  and  in  hem- 
lock hedges.  Soft-winged  as  the  owl  is,  he  cannot 
steal  in  upon  such  a  retreat  without  giving  them 
warning. 

These  sparrows  are  becoming  about  the  most  no- 
ticeable of  my  winter  neighbors,  and  a  troop  of  them 
every  morning  watch  me  put  out  the  hens'  feed,  and 
soon  claim  their  share.     I  rather  encouraged  them  in 
their  neighborliness,  till  one  day  I  discovered  the  snow 
under  a  favorite  plum-tree  where  they  most  frequently 
perched  covered  with  the  scales  of  the  fruit-buds.    On 
investigating  I  found  that  the  tree  had  been  nearly 
stripped  of  its  buds  —  a  very  unneighborly  act  on  the 
part  of  the  sparrows,  considering,  too,  all  the  cracked 
corn  I  had  scattered  for  them.     So  I  at  once  served 
Botice  on  them  that  our  good  understanding  was  at 
an  end.     And  a  hint  is  as  good  as  a  kick  with  this 
bird.     The  stone  I  hurled  among  them,  and  the  one 
with  which  I  followed  them  up,  may  have  been  taken 
as  a  kick ;  but  they  were  only  a  hint  of  the  shot-gun 
that  stood  ready  in  the  corner.     The  sparrows  left  in 
high  dudgeon,  and  were  not  back  again  in  some  days, 
and  were  then  very  shy.     No  doubt  the  time  is  near 
a^.  hand  when  we  shall  have  to  wage  serious  war- upon 


WINTER  NEIGHBORS.  71 

these  sparrows,  as  they  long  have  had  to  do  on  the 
continent  of  Europe.  And  yet  it  will  be  hard  to  kill 
the  little  wretches,  the  only  Old  World  bird  we  have. 
When  I  take  down  my  gun  to  shoot  them  I  shall  prob- 
ably remember  that  the  Psalmist  said,  "  I  watch,  and 
am  as  a  sparrow  alone  upon  the  house-top,"  and  may- 
be the  recollection  will  cause  me  to  stay  my  hando 
The  sparrows  have  the  Old  World  hardiness  and  pro- 
lificness ;  they  are  wise  and  tenacious  of  life,  and  we 
shall  find  it  by  and  by  no  small  matter  to  keep  them 
in  check.  Our  native  birds  are  much  different,  less 
prolific,  less  shrewd,  less  aggressive  and  persistent, 
less  quick-witted  and  able  to  read  the  note  of  danger 
or  hostility,  —  in  short,  less  sophisticated.  Most  of 
our  birds  are  yet  essentially  wild,  that  is,  little  changed 
b}^  civilization.  In  winter,  especially,  they  sweep  by 
me  and  around  me  in  flocks,  —  the  Canada  sparrow, 
the  snow-bunting,  the  shore-lark,  the  pine  grosbeak, 
the  red-poll,  the  cedar-bird,  —  feeding  upon  frozen 
apples  in  the  orchard,  upon  cedar-berries,  upon  ma- 
ple-buds, and  the  berries  of  the  mountain  ash,  and 
the  celtis,  and  upon  the  seeds  of  the  weeds  that  rise 
above  the  snow  in  the  field,  or  upon  the  hay-seed 
dropped  where  the  cattle  have  been  foddered  in  the 
barn-yard  or  about  the  distant  stack ;  but  'j2t  taking 
no  heed  of  man,  in  no  way  changing  their  habits  so 
as  to  take  advantage  of  his  presence  in  nature.  The. 
pine  grosbeak  will  come  in  numbers  upon  your  porch 
to  get  the  black  drupes  of  the  honeysuckle  or  the 
woodbine,  or  within  reach  of  your  windows  to  get  the 
berries  of  the  mountain-ash,  but  they  know  you  not ; 
they  look  at  you  as  innocently  and  unconcernedly  as 
at  a  bear  or  moose  in  their  native  north,  and  jout 
house  is  no  more  to  them  than  a  ledge  of  rocks. 


72  WINTER  NEIGHBORS. 

The  only  ones  of  my  winter  neighbors  that  actually 
rap  at  my  door  are  the  nut-hatches  and  woodpeckers, 
and  these  do  not  know  that  it  is  my  door.  My  retreat 
is  covered  with  the  bark  of  young  chestnut-trees,  and 
the  birds,  I  suspect,  mistake  it  for  a  huge  stump  that 
ought  to  hold  fat  grubs  (there  is  not  even  a  book- 
worm inside  of  it),  and  their  loud  rapping  often 
makes  me  think  I  have  a  caller  indeed.  I  place  frag- 
ments of  hickory-nuts  in  the  interstices  of  the  bark, 
and  thus  attract  the  nut-hatches ;  a  bone  upon  my 
window-sill  attracts  both  nut-hatches  and  the  downy 
woodpecker.  They  peep  in  curiously  through  the 
window  upon  me,  pecking  away  at  my  bone,  too  often 
a  very  poor  one.  A  bone  nailed  to  a  tree  a  few  feet 
in  front  of  the  window  attracts  crows  as  well  as  lesser 
birds.  Even  the  slate-colored  snow-bird,  a  seed-eater, 
comes  and  nibbles  it  occasionally. 

The  bird  that  seems  to  consider  he  has  the  best 
right  to  the  bone  both  upon  the  treie  and  upon  the  sill 
is  the  downy  woodpecker,  my  favorite  neighbor  among 
the  winter  birds,  to  whom  I  will  mainly  devote  the 
remainder  of  this  chapter.  His  retreat  is  but  a  few 
paces  from  my  own,  in  the  decayed  limb  of  ?n  apple- 
tree  which  he  excavated  several  autumns  ago.  I  say 
"he"  be«  ause  the  red  plume  on  the  top  of  his  head 
proclaims  the  sex.  It  seems  not  to  be  generally  known 
to  our  writers  upon  ornithology  that  certain  of  our 
woodpeckers  —  probably  all  the  winter  residents  — 
each  fall  excavate  a  limb  or  the  trunk  of  a  tree  in  which 
to  pass  the  winter,  and  that  the  cavity  is  abandoned 
in  the  spring,  probably  for  a  new  one  in  which  nidifi- 
cation  takes  place.  So  far  as  I  have  observed,  these 
cavities  are  drilled  out  only  by  the  males.  Where  the 
females   take  up  their  quarters  I  am  not  so  well  in- 


WINTER   NEIGHBORS.  73 

formed,  though  I  suspect  that  they  use  the  abandoned 
holes  of  the  males  of  the  previous  year. 

The  particular  woodpecker  to  which  I  refer  drilled 
his  first  hole  in  my  apple-tree  one  fall  four  or  five 
years  ago.  This  he  occupied  till  the  following  spring, 
when  he  abandoned  it.  The  next  fall  he  began  a  hole 
in  an  adjoining  limb,  later  than  before,  and  when  it 
was  about  half  comjDleted  a  female  took  possession  of 
his  old  quarters.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  this  seemed 
to  enrage  the  male  very  much,  and  he  persecuted  the 
poor  bird  whenever  she  appeared  upon  the  scene.  He 
would  fly  at  her  spitefully  and  drive  her  off.  One 
chilly  November  morning,  as  I  passed  under  the  tree, 
I  heard  the  hammer  of  the  little  architect  in  his  cav- 
ity, and  at  the  same  time  saw  the  persecuted  female 
sitting  at  the  entrance  of  the  other  hole  as  if  she  would 
fain  come  out.  She  was  actually  shivering,  probably 
from  both  fear  and  cold.  I  understood  the  situation 
at  a  glance;  the  bird  was  afraid  to  come  forth  and 
brave  the  anger  of  the  male.  Not  till  I  had  rapped 
smartly  upon  the  limb  with  my  stick  did  she  come 
out  and  attempt  to  escape ;  but  she  had  not  gone  ten 
feet  from  the  tree  before  the  male  was  in  hot  pur« 
suit,  and  in  a  few  moments  had  driven  her  back  to 
the  same  tree,  where  she  tried  to  avoid  him  among 
the  branches.  A  few  days  after,  he  rid  himself  of 
his  unwelcome  neig-hbor  in  the  followins:  ins^enious 
manner :  he  fairly  scuttled  the  other  cavity ;  he  drilled 
a  hole  into  the  bottom  of  it  that  let  in  the  liffht  and 
the  cold,  and  I  saw  the  female  there  no  more.  I  did 
not  see  him  in  the  act  of  rendering  this  tenement 
uninhabitable ;  but  one  morning,  behold  it  was  punc- 
tured at  the  bottom,  and  the  circumstances  all  seemed 
to  point  to  him  as  the  author  of  it.    There  is  probabl;y 


74  WINTER   NEIGHBORS. 

no  gallantry  among  the  birds  except  at  the  mating 
season.  I  have  frequently  seen  the  male  woodpecker 
drive  the  female  away  from  the  bone  upon  the  tree. 
AYhen  she  hopped  around  to  the  other  end  and  timidly 
nibbled  it,  he  would  presently  dart  spitefully  at  her. 
She  would  then  take  up  her  position  in  his  rear  and 
wait  till  he  had  finished  hi;  meal.  The  position  of 
the  female  among  the  birds  is  very  much  the  same  as 
that  of  woman  among  savage  tribes.  Most  of  the 
drudgery  of  life  falls  upon  her,  and  the  leavings  of 
the  males  are  often  her  lot. 

My  bird  is  a  genuine  little  savage,  doubtless,  but  I 
value  him  as  a  neighbor.  It  is  a  satisfaction  during 
the  cold  or  stormy  winter  nights  to  know  he  is  warm 
and  cosy  there  in  his  retreat.  When  the  day  is  bad 
and  unfit  to  be  abroad  in,  he  is  there  too.  When  I 
wish  to  know  if  he  is  at  home,  I  go  and  rap  upon  his 
tree,  and,  if  he  is  not  too  lazy  or  indifferent,  after 
some  delay  he  shows  his  head  in  his  round  doorway 
about  ten  feet  above,  and  looks  down  inquiringly  upon 
nie  —  sometimes  latterly  I  think  half  resentfully,  as 
much  as  to  say,  "  I  would  thank  you  not  to  disturb  me 
so  often."  After  sundown,  he  will  not  put  his  head 
out  any  more  when  I  call,  but  as  I  step  away  I  can 
get  a  glimpse  of  him  inside  looking  cold  and  reserved. 
He  is  a  late  riser,  especially  if  it  is  a  cold  or  disagree- 
able morning,  in  this  respect  being  like  the  barn  fowls ; 
it  is  sometimes  near  nine  o'clock  before  I  see  him 
leave  his  tree.  On  the  other  hand,  he  comes  home 
early,  being  in  if  the  day  is  unpleasant  by  four  p.  M. 
He  lives  all  alone  ;  in  this  respect  I  do  not  commend 
his  example.  Where  his  mate  is  I  should  like  to 
know. 

I  have  discovered  several  other  woodpeckers  in  ad 


WINTER   NEIGHBORS.  75 


Kif 


joining  orchards,  each  of  which  has  a  like  home  and 
leads  a  like  solitary  life.  One  of  them  has  excavated 
a  dry  limb  within  easy  reach  of  my  hand,  doing  the 
work  also  in  September.  But  the  choice  of  tree  was 
not  a  good  one  ;  the  limb  was  too  much  decayed,  and 
the  workman  had  made  the  cavity  too  large ;  a  chip 
had  come  out,  making  a  hole  in  the  outer  wall.  Then 
he  went  a  few  inches  down  the  limb  and  began  again, 
and  excavated  a  large,  commodious  chamber,  but  had 
again  come  too  near  the  surface ;  scarcely  more  than 
the  bark  protected  him  in  one  place,  and  the  limb  was 
very  much  weakened.  Then  he  made  another  attempt 
still  farther  down  the  limb,  and  drilled  in  an  inch 
or  two,  but  seemed  to  change  his  mind ;  the  work 
stopped,  and  I  concluded  the  bird  had  wisely  aban- 
doned the  tree.  Passing  there  one  cold,  rainy  Novem- 
ber day,  I  thrust  in  my  two  fingers  and  was  surprised 
to  feel  something  soft  and  warm :  as  I  drew  away  my 
hand  the  bird  came  out,  apparently  no  more  surprised 
than  I  was.  It  had  decided,  then,  to  make  its  home 
in  the  old  limb ;  a  decision  it  had  occasion  to  regret, 
for  not  long  after,  on  a  stormy  night,  the  branch  gave 
way  and  fell  to  the  ground. 

"  When  the  hough  hreaks  the  cradle  will  fall, 
And  down  will  come  baby,  cradle  and  all." 

Such  a  cavity  makes  a  snug,  warm  home,  and  whel* 
:the  entrance  is  on  the  under  side  of  the  limb,  as  is 
usual,  the  wind  and  snow  cannot  reach  the  occupant. 
Late  in  December,  while  crossing  a  high,  wooded 
mountain,  lured  by  the  music  of  fox-hounds,  I  dis- 
covered fresh  yellow  chips  strewing  the  new-fallen 
snow,  and  at  once  thought  of  my  woodpeckers.  On 
looking  around  I  saw  where  one  had  been  at  work 
excavating  a  lodge  in  a  small  yellow  birch.     The  ori- 


Y6  WINTER  NEIGHBORS. 

fice  was  about  fifteen  feet  from  the  ground,  and  ap. 
peared  as  round  as  if  struck  with  a  compass.  It  was 
on  the  east  side  of  the  tree,  so  as  to  avoid  the  prevail- 
ing west  and  northwest  winds.  As  it  was  nearly  two 
inches  in  diameter,  it  could  not  have  been  the  work  of 
the  downy,  but  must  have  been  that  of  the  hairy,  or 
else  the  yellow-bellied  woodpecker.  His  home  had 
probably  been  wrecked  by  some  violent  wind,  and  he 
was  thus  providing  himself  another.  In  digging  out 
these  retreats  the  woodpeckers  prefer  a  dry,  brittle 
trunk,  not  too  soft.  They  go  in  horizontally  to  the 
centre  and  then  turn  downward,  enlarging  the  tunnel 
as  they  go,  till  when  finished  it  is  the  shape  of  a  long, 
deep  pear. 

Another  trait  our  woodpeckers  have  that  tndears 
them  to  me,  and  that  has  never  been  pointedly  noticed 
by  our  ornithologists,  is  their  habit  of  drumming  in 
the  spring.  They  are  songless  birds,  and  yet  all  are 
musicians  ;  they  make  the  dry  limbs  eloquent  of  the 
coming  change.  Did  you  think  that  loud,  sonorous 
hammering  which  proceeded  from  the  orchard  or  from 
the  near  woods  on  that  still  March  or  April  morning 
was  only  some  bird  getting  its  breakfast  ?  It  is  downy, 
but  he  is  not  rapping  at  the  door  of  a  grub  ;  he  is  rap- 
ping at  the  door  of  spring,  and  the  dry  limb  thrills 
beneath  the  ardor  of  his  blows.  Or,  later  in  the  sea= 
son,  in  the  dense  forest  or  by  some  remote  mountain 
lake,  does  that  measured  rhythmic  beat  that  breaks 
upon  the  silence,  first  three  strokes  following  each 
other  rapidly,  succeeded  by  two  louder  ones  with  longer 
intervals  between  them,  and  that  has  an  effect  upon 
the  alert  ear  as  if  the  solitude  itself  had  at  last  found  a 
voice  —  does  that  suggest  anything  less  than  a  delib- 
erate musical  performance?    In  fact,  our  woodpecki  rs 


WINTER   NEIGHBORS.  11 

are  just  as  characteristically  drummers  as  is  the  ruffed 
grouse,  and  they  have  their  particular  limbs  and  stubs 
to  which  they  resort  for  that  purpose.  Their  need  of 
expression  is  apparently  just  as  great  as  that  of  the 
song-birds,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  they  should 
have  found  out  that  there  is  music  in  a  dry,  seasoned 
limb  which  can  be  evoked  beneath  their  beaks.  i 

A  few  seasons  ago  a  downy  woodpecker,  probably 
the  individual  one  who  is  now  my  winter  neighbor, 
began  to  drum  early  in  March  in  a  partly  decayed 
apple-tree  that  stands  in  the  edge  of  a  narrow  strip  of 
woodland  near  me.  When  the  morning  was  still  and 
mild  I  would  often  hear  him  through  my  window  be- 
fore I  was  up,  or  b}^  half-past  six  o'clock,  and  he 
would  keep  it  up  pretty  briskly  till  nine  or  ten  o'clock, 
in  this  respect  resembling  the  grouse,  which  do  most 
of  their  drumming  in  the  forenoon.  His  drum  was 
the  stub  of  a  dry  limb  about  the  size  of  one's  wrist. 
The  heart  was  decayed  and  gone,  but  the  outer  shell 
was  hard  and  resonant.  The  bird  would  keep  his  po- 
sition there  for  an  hour  at  a  time.  Between  his  drum- 
mings  he  would  preen  his  plumage  and  listen  as  if  for 
the  response  of  the  female,  or  for  the  drum  of  some 
rival.  How  swift  his  head  would  go  when  he  was 
delivering  his  blows  upon  the  limb !  His  beak  wore 
the  surface  perceptibly.  When  he  wished  to  change 
the  key,  which  was  quite  often,  he  would  shift  his 
position  an  inch  or  two  to  a  knot  which  gave  out  a 
higher,  shriller  note.  When  I  climbed  up  to  examine 
his  drum  he  was  much  disturbed.  I  did  not  know  he 
was  in  the  vicinity,  but  it  seems  he  saw  me  from  a 
near  tree,  and  came  in  haste  to  the  neighboring 
branches,  and  with  spread  plumage  and  a  sharp  note 
demanded  plainly  enough  what  my  business  was  with 


78  WINTER  NEIGHBORS. 

his  drum.  I  was  invading  his  privacy,  desecrating 
his  shrine,  and  the  bird  was  much  put  out.  After 
some  weeks  the  female  appeared ;  he  had  literally 
drummed  up  a  mate ;  his  urgent  and  oft-repeated  ad- 
vertisement was  answered.  Still  the  drumming  did 
not  cease,  but  was  quite  as  fervent  as  before.  If  a 
mate  could  be  won  by  drumming  she  could  be  kept 
and  entertained  by  more  drumming ;  courtship  should 
not  end  with  marriage.  If  the  bird  felt  musical  be- 
fore, of  course  he  felt  much  more  so  now.  Besides 
that,  the  gentle  deities  needed  propitiating  in  behalf 
of  the  nest  and  young  as  well  as  in  behalf  of  the  mate. 
After  a  time  a  second  female  came,  when  there  was 
war  between  the  two.  I  did  not  see  them  come  to 
blows,  but  I  saw  one  female  pursuing  the  other  about 
the  place,  and  giving  her  no  rest  for  several  days. 
She  was  evidently  trying  to  run  her  out  of  the  neigh- 
borhood. Now  and  then  she,  too,  would  drum  briefly, 
as  if  sending  a  triumphant  message  to  her  mate. 

The  woodpeckers  do  not  each  have  a  particular  dry 
limb  to  which  they  resort  at  all  times  to  drum,  like 
the  one  I  have  described.  The  woods  are  full  of 
suitable  branches,  and  they  drum  more  or  less  here 
and  there  as  they  are  in  quest  of  food ;  yet  I  am  con- 
vinced each  one  has  its  favorite  spot,  like  the  grouse, 
to  which  it  resorts,  especially  in  the  morning.  The 
sugar-maker  in  the  maple-woods  may  notice  that  this 
sound  proceeds  from  the  same  tree  or  trees  about  his 
camp  with  great  regularity.  A  woodpecker  in  my  vi- 
cinity has  drummed  for  two  seasons  on  a  telegraph- 
pole,  and  he  makes  the  wires  and  glass  insulators  ring. 
Another  drums  on  a  thin  board  on  the  end  of  a  long 
grape-arbor,  and  on  still  mornings  can  be  heard  a 
long  distance. 


WINTER   NEIGHBORS,  .    79 

A  friend  of  mine  in  a  Southern  city  tells  me  of  a 
red-headed  woodpecker  that  drums  upon  a  lightning- 
rod  on  his  neighbor's  house.  Nearly  every  clear,  still 
morning  at  certain  seasons,  he  says,  this  musical  rap- 
ping may  be  heard.  "  He  alternates  his  tapping  with 
iiis  stridulous  call,  and  the  effect  on  a  cool,  autumn- 
like  morning  is  very  pleasing." 

The  high-hole  appears  to  drum  more  promiscuously 
than  does  the  downy.  He  utters  his  long,  loud  spring 
call,  which  —  whick  —  whick  —  whick,  and  then  be- 
gins to  rap  with  his  beak  upon  his  perch  before  the 
last  note  has  reached  your  ear.  I  have  seen  him 
drum  sitting  upon  the  ridge  of  the  barn.  The  log 
cock,  or  pileated  woodpecker,  the  largest  and  wildest 
of  our  Northern  species,  I  have  never  heard  drunie 
His  blows  should  wake  the  echoes. 

When  the  woodpecker  is  searching  for  food,  or  lay- 
ing siege  to  some  hidden  grub,  the  sound  of  his  ham- 
mer is  dead  or  muffled,  and  is  heard  but  a  few  vards. 
It  is  only  upon  dry,  seasoned  timber,  freed  of  its  bark, 
that  he  beats  his  reveille  to  spring  and  wooes  his 
mate. 

Wilson  was  evidently  familiar  with  this  vernal 
drumming  of  the  woodpeckers,  but  quite  misinterprets 
it.  Speaking  of  the  red-bellied  species,  he  says  :  "  It 
rattles  like  the  rest  of  the  tribe  on  the  dead  limbs, 
and  with  such  violence  as  to  be  heard  in  still  weather 
more  than  half  a.  mile  off ;  and  listens  to  hear  the  in- 
sect it  has  alarmed."  He  listens  rather  to  hear  the 
drum  of  his  rival  or  the  brief  and  coy  response  of  the 
female ;  for  there  are  no  insects  in  these  dry  limbs. 

On  one  occasion  I  saw  downy  at  his  drum  when  a 
female  flew  quickly  through  the  tree  and  alighted  a 
few   yards  beyond  him.     He   paused   instantly,  and 


80  WINTER   NEIGHBORIS. 

kept  hi^  place,  apparently  without  moving  a  muscle. 
The  female,  I  took  it,  had  answered  his  advertisement. 
She  flitted  about  from  limb  to  limb  (the  female  may 
be  known  by  the  absence  of  the  crimson  spot  on  the 
back  of  the  head),  apparently  full  of  business  of  her 
own,  and  now  and  then  would  drum  in  a  shy,  tenta- 
tive manner.  The  male  watched  her  a  few  mo- 
ments, and,  convinced  perhaps  that  she  meant  busi- 
ness, struck  up  his  liveliest  tune,  then  listened  for  her 
response.  As  it  came  back  timidly  but  promptly,  he 
left  his  perch  and  sought  a  nearer  acquaintance  with 
the  prudent  female.  Whether  or  not  a  match  grew 
out  of  this  little  flirtation  I  cannot  sav. 

Our  smaller  woodpeckers  are  sometimes  accused  of 
hijuring  the  apple  and  other  fruit  trees,  but  the  depre- 
dator is  probably  the  larger  and  rarer  yellow-bellied 
species.  One  autumn  I  caught  one  of  these  fellows  in 
the  act  of  sinking  long  rows  of  his  little  wells  in  the 
limb  of  an  apple-tree.  There-  were  series  of  rings  of 
them,  one  above  another,  quite  around  the  stem,  some 
of  them  the  third  of  an  inch  across.  They  are  evi- 
dently made  to  get  at  the  tender,  juicy  bark,  or  cam- 
bium layer,  next  to  the  hard  wood  of  the  tree.  The 
health  and  vitality  of  the  branch  are  so  seriously  im- 
paired by  them  that  it  often  dies. 

In  the  following  winter  the  same  bird  (probably) 
fcapped  a  maple-tree  in  front  of  my  window  in  fifty-six 
places;  and  when  the  day  was  sunny,  and  the  sap 
oozed  out,  he  spent  most  of  his  time  there.  He  knew 
the  good  sap-days,  and  was  on  hand  promptly  for  his 
tipple  ;  cold  and  cloudy  days  he  did  not  appear.  He 
knew  which  side  of  the  tree  to  tap,  too,  and  avoided 
the  sunless  northern  exposure.  When  one  series  of 
v/ell-holes  failed  to  supply  him,  he  would  sink  another, 


\ 

WINTER   NEIGHBORS.  81 

drilling  through  the  bark  with  great  ease  and  quick* 
ness.  Then,  when  the  day  was  warm,  and  the  sap  ran 
freely,  he  would  have  a  regular  sugar-maple  debaucli, 
sitting  there  by  his  wells  hour  after  hour,  and  as  fast 
as  they  became  filled  sipping  out  the  sap.  This  he 
did  in  a  gentle,  caressing  manner  that  was  very  sug« 
gestive.  He  made  a  row  of  wells  near  the  foot  of  the 
tree,  and  other  rows  higher  up,  and  he  would  hop 
up  and  down  the  trunk  as  these  became  filled.  He 
would  hop  down  the  tree  backward  with  the  utmost 
ease,  throwing  his  tail  outward  and  his  head  inward  at 
each  hop.  When  the  wells  would  freeze  or  his  thirst 
become  slaked,  he  would  ruffle  his  feathers,  draw  him- 
self together,  and  sit  and  doze  in  the  sun  on  the  side 
of  the  tree.  He  passed  the  night  in  a  hole  in  an 
apple-tree  not  far  off.  He  was  evidently  a  young  bird, 
not  yet  having  the  plumage  of  the  mature  male  or  fe- 
male, and  yet  he  knew  which  tree  to  tap  and  where  to 
tap  it.  I  saw  where  he  had  bored  several  maples  in 
the  vicinity,  but  no  oaks  or  chestnuts.  I  nailed  up  a 
fat  bone  near  his  sap-works  :  the  downy  woodpecker 
came  there  several  times  a  day  to  dine ;  the  nut-hatch 
came,  and  even  the  snow-bird  took  a  taste  occasion- 
ally ;  but  this  sap-sucker  never  touched  it ;  the  sweet 
of  the  tree  sufficed  for  him.  This  woodpecker  does 
not  breed  or  abound  in  my  vicinity ;  only  stray  speci- 
mens are  now  and  then  to  be  met  with  in  the  colder 
months.  As  spring  approached,  the  one  I  refer  to 
took  his  departure. 

I  must  bring  my  account  of  my  neighbor  in  the  tree 
down  to  the  latest  date  ;  so  after  the  lapse  of  a  year  I 
add  the  following  notes.  The  last  day  of  February 
was  bright  and  springlike.     I  heard  the  first  sparrow 


82  WINTER  NEIGHBORS. 

sing  that  morning  and  tlie  first  screaming  of  the  ciiv 
cling  hawks,  and  about  seven  o'clock  the  first  drum- 
ming of  my  little  friend.  His  first  notes  were  uncer- 
tain and  at  long  intervals,  but  by  and  by  he  warmed 
up  and  beat  a  lively  tattoo.  As  the  season  advanced 
he  ceased  to  lodge  in  his  old  quarters.  I  would  rap 
and  find  nobody  at  home.  Was  he  out  on  a  lark,  I 
said,  the  spring  fever  working  in  his  blood  ?  After  a 
"ime  his  drumming  grew  less  frequent,  and  finally,  in 
i;he  middle  of  April,  ceased  entirely.  Had  some  acci- 
lent  befallen  him,  or  had  he  wandered  away  to  fresh 
i&elds,  following  some  siren  of  his  species  ?  Probably 
the  latter.  Another  bird  that  I  had  under  observa- 
tion also  left  his  winter-quarters  in  the  spring.  This, 
then,  appears  to  be  the  usual  custom.  The  wrens  and 
the  nut-hatches  and  chickadees  succeed  to  these  aban- 
doned cavities,  and  often  have  amusing  disputes  over 
them.  The  nut-hatches  frequently  pass  the  night  in 
them,  and  the  wrens  and  chickadees  nest  in  them.  I 
have  further  observed  that  in  excavating  a  cavity  for 
a  nest  the  downy  woodpecker  makes  the  entrance 
smaller  than  when  he  is  excavating  his  winter-quar- 
ters. This  is  doubtless  for  the  greater  safety  of  the 
young  birds. 

The  next  fall,  the  downy  excavated  another  limb  in 
the  old  apple-tree,  but  had  not  got  his  retreat  quite 
finished,  when  the  large  hairy  woodpecker  appeared 
upon  the  scene.  I  heard  his  loud  cliche  clicks  early 
one  frosty  November  morning.  There  was  something 
impatient  and  angry  in  the  tone  that  arrested  my  at- 
tention. I  saw  the  bird  fly  to  the  tree  w^here  downy 
had  been  at  work,  and  fall  with  great  violence  upon 
the  entrance  to  his  cavity.  The  bark  and  the  chips 
flew  beneath  his  vigorous  blows,  and  before  I  fairly 


WINTER   NEIGHBORS,  83 

woke  up  to  what  he  was  doing,  he  had  completely  de- 
molished the  neat,  round  doorway  of  downy.  He  had 
made  a  large  ragged  opening  large  enough  for  himself 
to  enter.  I  drove  him  away  and  my  favorite  came 
back,  but  only  to  survey  the  ruins  of  his  castle  for  a 
moment  and  then  go  away.  He  lingered  about  for  a 
day  or  two  and  then  disappeared.  The  big  hairy 
usurper  passed  a  night  in  the  cavity,  but  on  being  hus- 
tled out  of  it  the  next  night  by  me,  he  also  left,  but 
not  till  he  had  demolished  the  entrance  to  a  cavity  in 
a  neighboring  tree  where  downy  and  his  mate  had 
reared  their  brood  that  summer,  and  where  I  had 
hoped  the  female  would  pass  the  winter. 


NOTES  BY  THE  WAY. 

I.    THE  WEATHER-WISE  MUSKRAT. 

I  AM  more  than  half  persuaded  that  the  muskrat 
is  a  wise  little  animal,  and  that  on  the  subject  of  the 
weather,  especially,  he  possesses  some  secret  that  I 
should  be  glad  to  know.  In  the  fall  of  1878  I  noticed 
that  he  built  unusually  high  and  massive  nests.  I 
noticed  them  in  several  different  localities.  In  a  shal- 
low, sluggish  pond  by  the  roadside,  which  I  used  to 
pass  daily  in  my  walk,  two  nests  were  in  process  of 
construction  throughout  the  month  of  November.  The 
builders  worked  only  at  night,  and  I  could  see  each 
day  that  the  work  had  visibly  advanced.  When  there 
was  a  slight  skim  of  ice  over  the  pond,  this  was  broken 
up  about  the  nests,  with  trails  through  it  in  different 
directions  where  the  material  had  been  brought.  The 
houses  were  placed  a  little  to  one  side  of  the  main 
channel,  and  were  constructed  entirely  of  a  species  of 
coarse  wild  grass  that  grew  all  about.  So  far  as  I 
could  see,  from  first  to  last  they  were  solid  masses 
of  grass,  as  if  the  interior  cavity  or  nest  was  to  be 
excavated  afterward,  as  doubtless  it  was.  As  they 
emerged  from  the  pond  they  gradually  assumed  the 
shape  of  a  miniature  mountain,  very  bold  and  steep 
on  the  south  side,  and  running  down  a  long  gentle 
grade  to  the  surface  of  the  water  on  the  north.  One 
could  see  that  the  little  architect  hauled  all  his  ma- 
terial up  this  easy  slope,  and   thrust   it   out   boldly 


THE  WEATHER-WISE  MUSKRAT  85 

« 

around  the  otlier  side.    Every  mouthful  was  distinctly 
defined.     After  they  were  two  feet  or  more  above  the 
water,  I  expected  each  day  to  see  that  the  finishing 
stroke  had  been  given  and  the  work  brought  to  a 
close.     But  higher  yet,  said  the  builder.     December 
drew  near,  the  cold  became  threatening,  and  I  was 
apprehensive  that  winter  would  suddenly  shut  down 
upon  those  unfinished  nests.     But  the  wise  rats  knew 
better  than  I  did  ;  they  had  received  private  advices 
from  headquarters  that  I  knew  not  of.    Finally,  about 
the  6th  of  December,  the  nests  assumed  comjjletion ; 
the  northern  incline  was  absorbed  or  carried  up,  and 
each  structure  became  a  strong  massive  cone,  three  or 
four  feet  high,  the  largest  nest  of  the  kind  I  had  ever 
seen.    Does  it  mean  a  severe  winter?  I  inquired.     An 
old  farmer  said  it  meant  "  high  water,"  and  he  was 
right  once,  at  least,  for  in  a  few  days  afterward  we 
had  the  heaviest  rainfall  known  in  this  section  for 
half  a  century.    The  creeks  rose  to  an  almost  unprece- 
dented height.    The  sluggish  pond  became  a  seething, 
turbulent  watercourse  ;  gradually  the  angry  element 
crept  up  the  sides  of  these  lake  dwellings,  till,  when 
the  rain  ceased,  about  four  o'clock  they  showed  above 
the  flood  no  larger  than  a  man's  hat.     During  the 
night  the  channel  shifted  till  the  main  current  swept 
over  them,  and  next  day  not  a  vestige  of  the  nests  was 
to  be  seen ;  they  had  gone  down-stream,  as  had  many 
other  dwellings  of  a  less  temporary  character.     The 
rats  had  built  wisely,  and  would  have  been  perfectly 
secure  against  any  ordinary  high  water,  but  who  can 
foresee  a  flood  ?     The  oldest  traditions  of  their  race 
did  not  run  back  to  the  time  of  such  a  visitation. 

Nearly   a   week   afterward    another   dwelling   was 
begun,  well  away  from  the  treacherous  channel,  but 


86  NOTES  BY  THE  WAV. 

the  architects  did  not  work  at  it  with  much  heart ; 
the  material  was  very  scarce,  the  ice  hindered,  and  be- 
fore the  basement-story  was  fairly  finished,  winter  had 
the  pond  under  his  lock  and  key. 

In  other  localities  I  noticed  that  where  the  nests 
were  placed  on  the  banks  of  streams,  they  were  made 
secure  against  the  floods  by  being  built  amid  a  small 
clump  of  bushes.  When  the  fall  of  1879  came,  the 
muskrats  were  very  tardy  about  beginning  their  house, 
laying  the  corner-stone  —  or  the  corner-sod  —  about 
December  1st,  and  continuing  the  work  slowly  and 
indifferently.  On  the  15th  of  the  month  the  nest  was 
not  yet  finished.  This,  I  said,  indicates  a  mild  winter ; 
and,  sure  enough,  the  season  was  one  of  the  mildest 
known  for  many  years.  The  rats  had  little  use  for 
their  house. 

Again,  in  the  fall  of  1880,  while  the  weather-wise 
were  wagging  their  heads,  some  forecasting  a  mild, 
some  a  severe  winter,  I  watched  with  interest  for  a 
sign  from  my  muskrats.  About  November  1st,  a  month 
earlier  than  the  previous  year,  they  began  their  nest, 
and  worked  at  it  with  a  will.  They  appeared  to  have 
just  got  tidings  of  what  was  coming.  If  I  had  taken 
the  hint  so  palpably  given,  my  celery  would  not  have 
been  frozen  in  the  ground,  and  my  apples  caught 
in  unprotected  places.  When  the  cold^  wave  struck 
us,  about  November  20th,  my  four-legged  "  I-told-you- 
so's "  had  nearly  completed  their  dwelling ;  it  lacked 
only  the  ridge-board,  so  to  speak ;  it  needed  a  little 
*'  topping  out,"  to  give  it  a  finished  look.  But  this 
it  never  got.  The  winter  had  come  to  stay,  and  it 
waxed  more  and  more  severe,  till  the  unprecedented 
cold  of  the  last  days  of  December  must  have  aston. 
ished  even   the  wise  muskrats  in  their  snug  retreat. 


THE  WEATHER-WISE  MUSKRAT.  87 

I  approached  their  nest  at  this  time,  a  white  mound 
upon  the  white,  deepl}^  frozen  surface  of  the  pond,  and 
wondered  if  there  was  any  life  in  that  apparent  sep- 
ulchre. I  thrust  my  walking-stick  sharply  into  it, 
when  there  was  a  rustle  and  a  splash  into  the  water, 
as  the  occupant  made  his  escape.  What  a  dsrap  base- 
ment that  house  has,  I  thought,  and  what  a  pity  to 
rout  a  peaceful  neighbor  out  of  his  bed  in  this  weather, 
and  into  such  a  state  of  things  as  this !  But  water  does 
not  wet  the  muskrat ;  his  fur  is  charmed,  and  not  a 
drop  penetrates  it.  Where  the  ground  is  favorable, 
the  muskrats  do  not  build  these  mound-like  nests,  but 
burrow  into  the  bank  a  long  distance,  and  establish 
their  winter-quarters  there. 

Shall  we  not  say,  then,  in  view  of  the  above  facts, 
that  this  little  creature  is  weather-wise  ?  The  hitting 
of  the  mark  twice  might  be  mere  good  luck ;  but  three 
bull's-eyes  in  succession  is  not  a  mere  coincidence ;  it 
is  a  proof  of  skill.  The  muskrat  is  not  found  in  the 
Old  World,  which  is  a  little  singular,  as  other  rats  so 
abound  there,  and  as  those  slow-going  English  streams 
especially,  with  their  grassy  banks,  are  so  well  suited 
to  him.  The  water-rat  of  Europe  is  smaller,  but  of 
similar  nature  and  habits.  The  muskrat  does  not 
hibernate  like  some  rodents,  but  is  pretty  active  all 
winter.  In  December  I  noticed  in  my  walk  where 
they  had  made  excursions  of  a  few  yards  to  an  orchard 
for  frozen  apples.  One  day,  along  a  little  stream,  1 
saw  a  mink  track  amid  those  of  the  muskrat ;  follow- 
ing it  up,  I  presently  came  to  blood  and  other  marks 
of  strife  upon  the  snow  beside  a  stone  wall.  Looking 
in  between  the  stones,  I  found  the  carcass  of  the  luck- 
less rat,  with  its  head  and  neck  eaten  away.  The 
mink  had  made  a  meal  of  him. 


88  NOTES  BY   THE   WAY. 


II.    CHEATING  THE  SQUIRRELS. 

For  the  largest  and  finest  chestnuts  I  had  last  fall 
I  was  indebted  to  the  gray  squirrels.  Walking  through 
the  early  October  woods  one  day,  I  came  upon  a  place 
where  the  ground  was  thickly  strewn  with  very  large 
unopened  chestnut  burs.  On  examination  I  found 
that  every  bur  had  been  cut  square  off  with  about  an 
inch  of  the  stem  adhering,  and  not  one  had  been  left 
on  the  tree.  It  was  not  accident,  then,  but  design. 
Whose  design?  The  squirrels'.  The  fruit  was  the 
finest  I  had  ever  seen  in  the  woods,  and  some  wise 
squirrel  had  marked  it  for  his  own.  The  burs  were 
ripe,  and  had  just  begun  to  divide,  not  "  threefold," 
but  fourfold,  ''  to  show  the  fruit  within."  The  squir- 
rel that  had  taken  all  this  pains  had  evidently  rea- 
soned with  himself  thus  :  ''  Now,  these  are  extremely 
fine  chestnuts,  and  I  want  them  ;  if  I  wait  till  the 
burs  open  on  the  tree  the  crows  and  jays  will  be  sure 
to  carry  off  a  great  many  of  the  nuts  before  they  fall ; 
then,  after  the  wind  has  rattled  out  what  remain, 
there  are  the  mice,  the  chipmunks,  the  red  squirrels, 
the  raccoons,  the  grouse,  to  say  nothing  of  the  boys 
and  the  pigs,  to  come  in  for  their  share  ;  so  I  will 
forestall  events  a  little ;  I  will  cut  off  the  burs  when 
they  have  matured,  and  a  few  days  of  this  dry  Octo- 
ber weather  will  cause  every  one  of  them  to  open  on 
the  ground  ;  I  shall  be  on  hand  in  the  nick  of  time  to 
gather  up  my  nuts."  The  squirrel,  of  course,  had  to 
take  the  chances  of  a  prowler  like  myself  coming 
along,  but  he  had  fairly  stolen  a  march  on  his  neigh- 
bors. As  I  proceeded  to  collect  and  open  the  burs,  I 
was  half  prepared  to  hear  an  audible  protest  from  the 


FOX  AND  HOUND.  89 

trees  about,  for  I  constantly  fancied  myself  watched 
by  shy  but  jealous  eyes.  It  is  an  interesting  inquiry 
how  the  squirrel  knew  the  burs  would  open  if  left  to 
lie  on  the  ground  a  few  days.  Perhaps  he  did  not 
know,  but  thought  the  experiment  worth  trying. 

The  gray  squirrel  is  peculiarly  an  American  prod» 
uct,  and  might  serve  very  well  as  a  national  emblemo 
The  Old  World  can  beat  us  on  rats  and  mice,  but  we 
are  far  ahead  on  squirrels,  having  five  or  six  species 
to  Europe's  one. 


III.    FOX  AND  HOUND. 

«TOOD  on  a  high  hill  or  ridge  one  autumn  day 
and  ^^Ni  s-  hound  run  a  fox  through  the  fields  far  be- 
neatli  me.  What  odors  that  fox  must  have  shaken 
out  o£  Mmself ,  I  thought,  to  be  traced  thus  easily,  and 
hoY/  great  their  specific  gravity  not  to  have  been 
blown  away  like  smoke  by  the  breeze  !  The  fox  ran 
a  long  distance  down  the  hill,  keeping  within  a  few 
feet  of  a  stone  wall ;  then  turned  a  right  angle  and 
led  off  for  the  mountain,  across  a  plowed  field  and  a 
succession  of  pasture  lands.  In  about  fifteen  minutes 
the  hound  came  in  full  blast  with  her  nose  in  the  air, 
and  never  once  did  she  put  it  to  the  ground  while  in 
my  sight.  When  she  came  to  the  stone  wall  she  took 
the  other  side  from  that  taken  by  the  fox,  and  kept 
aboiit  the  same  distance  from  it,  being  thus  separated 
several  yards  from  his  track,  with  the  fence  between 
Iier  and  it.  At  the  point  where  the  fox  turned 
sliarply  to  the  left,  the  hound  overshot  a  few  yards, 
tnen  wheeled,  and  feeling  the  air  a  moment  with  her 
nose,  took  up  the  scent  again  and  was  off  on  his  trail 


90  NOTES  BY   THE  WAV. 

as  unerringly  as  fate.  It  seemed  as  if  tlie  fox  must 
'have  sowed  himself  broadcast  as  he  went  along,  and 
that  his  scent  was  so  rank  and  heavy  that  it  settled 
in  the  hollows  and  clung  tenaciously  to  the  bushes 
and  crevices  in  the  fence.  I  thought  I  ought  to  have 
caught  a  remnant  of  it  as  I  passed  that  way  some 
minutes  later,  but  I  did  not.  But  I  suppose  it  was 
not  that  the  light-footed  fox  so  impressed  himself 
upon  the  ground  he  ran  over,  but  that  the  sense  of 
the  hound  was  so  keen.  To  her  sensitive  nose  these 
tracks  steamed  like  hot  cakes,  and  they  would  not 
have  cooled  off  so  as  to  be  undistinguishable  for  sev- 
eral hours.  For  the  time  being  she  had  but  one 
sense :  her  whole  soul  was  concentrated  in  her  nose. 

It  is  amusing  when  the  hunter  starts  out  of  a  win- 
ter morning  to  see  his  hound  probe  the  old  tracks  to 
determine  how  recent  they  are.  He  sinks  his  nose 
down  deep  in  the  snow  so  as  to  exclude  the  air  from 
above,  then  draws  a  long  full  breath,  giving  some- 
times an  audible  snort.  If  there  remains  the  least 
effluvium  of  the  fox  the  hound  will  detect  it.  If  it  be 
very  slight  it  only  sets  his  tail  wagging;  if  it  be 
strong  it  unloosens  his  tongue. 

Such  things  remind  one  of  the  waste,  the  friction 
that  is  going  on  aU  about  us,  even  when  the  wheels  of 
life  run  the  most  smoothly.  A  fox  cannot  trip  along 
the  top  of  a  stone  wall  so  lightly  but  that  he  will  leave 
enough  of  himself  to  betray  his  course  to  the  hound 
for  hours  afterward.  When  the  boys  play  "  hare  and 
hounds  "  the  hare  scatters  bits  of  paper  to  give  a  clew 
to  the  pursuers,  but  he  scatters  himself  much  more 
freely  if  only  our  sight  and  scent  were  sharp  enough 
to  detect  the  fragments.  Even  the  fish  leave  a  trail 
in  the  water,  and  it  is  said  the  otter  will  pursue  them 


FOX  AND  HOUND.  91 

by  it.  The  birds  make  a  track  in  the  air,  only  their 
enemies  hunt  by  sight  rather  than  by  scent.  The  fox 
baffles  the  hound  most  upon  a  hard  crust  of  frozen 
snow ;  the  scent  will  not  hold  to  the  smooth,  bead-like 
granules. 

Judged  by  the  eye  alone,  the  fox  is  the  lightest  and 
most  buoyant  creature  that  runs.  His  soft  wrapping 
of  fur  conceals  the  muscular  play  and  effort  that  is  so 
obvious  in  the  hound  that  pursues  him,  and  he  comes 
bounding  along  precisely  as  if  blown  by  a  gentle  wind. 
His  massive  tail  is  carried  as  if  it  floated  upon  the  air 
by  its  own  lightness. 

The  hound  is  not  remarkable  for  his  fleetness,  but 
how  he  will  hang  !  —  often  running  late  into  the  night 
and  sometimes  till  morning,  from  ridge  to  ridge,  from 
peak  to  peak ;  now  on  the  mountain,  now  crossing  the 
valley,  now  playing  about  a  large  slope  of  uplying 
pasture  fields.  At  times  the  fox  has  a  pretty  well- 
defined  orbit,  and  the  hunter  knows  where  to  intercept 
him.  Again  he  leads  off  like  a  comet,  quite  beyond 
the  system  of  hills  and  ridges  upon  which  he  was 
started,  and  his  return  is  entirely  a  matter  of  conjec- 
ture ;  but  if  the  day  be  not  more  than  half  spent,  the 
chances  are  that  the  fox  will  be  back  before  night, 
though  the  sportsman's  patience  seldom  holds  out  that 
long. 

The  hound  is  a  most  interesting  dog.  How  solemn 
and  long-visaged  he  is  —  how  peaceful  and  well-dis- 
posed !  He  is  the  Quaker  among  dogs.  All  the  vi- 
ciousness  and  currishness  seem  to  have  been  weeded 
out  of  him  ;  he  seldom  quarrels,  or  fights,  or  plays, 
like  other  dogs.  Two  strange  hounds,  meeting  for 
the  first  time,  behave  as  civilly  toward  each  other  as 
two  men.     I  know  a  hound  that  has  an  ancient,  wrin- 


92  NOTES  BY  THE  WAY. 

kled,  human,  far-away  look  that  reminds  one  of  the 
bust  of  Homer  among  the  Elgin  marbles.  He  looks 
like  the  mountains  toward  which  his  heart  yearns  so 
much. 

The  hound  is  a  great  puzzle  to  the  farm  dog ;  the 
latter,  attracted   by  his   baying,  comes   barking  and 
snarling  up  through  the  fields  bent  on  picking  a  quar° 
rel ;  he  intercepts  the  hound,  snubs  and  insults  and 
annoys    him   in  every  way  possible,  but   the   hound 
heeds  him  not ;  if  the  dog  attacks  him  he  gets  away 
as  best  he  can,  and  goes  on  with  the  trail ;  the  cur 
bristles  and  barkfe  and  struts  about  for  a  while,  then 
goes  back  to  the  house,  evidently  thinking  the  hound 
a  lunatic,  which  he  is  for  the  time  being  —  a  mono- 
maniac, the  slave  and  victim  of  one  idea.     I  saw  the 
master  of  a  hound  one  day  arrest  him  in  full  course, 
to  give  one  of  the  hunters  time  to  get  to  a  certain 
runaway  ;  the  dog  cried  and  struggled  to  free  himself 
and   would   listen    neither    to   threats    nor    caresses. 
Knowing  he  must  be  hungry,  I  offered  him  my  lunch, 
but  he  would  not  touch  it.     I  put  it  in  his  mouth,  but 
he  threw  it  contemptuously  from  him.     We  coaxed 
and   petted  and  reassured  him,  but  he  was  under  a 
spell ;  he  was  bereft  of  all  thought  or  desire  but  the 
one  passion  to  pursue  that  trail. 


IV.  THE  WOODCHUCK 


Writers  upon  rural  England  and  her  familiar 
natural  history  make  no  mention  of  the  marmot  or 
woodchuck.  In  Europe  this  animal  seems  to  be  con- 
fined to  the  high  mountainous   districts,  as  on  our 


THE   WOODCHUCK.  93 

Pacific  slope,  burrowing  near  the  snow  line.  It  is 
more  social  or  gregarious  than  the  American  species, 
living  in  large  families  like  our  prairie-dog.  In  the 
Middle  and  Eastern  States  our  woodchuck  takes  the 
place,  in  some  respects,  of  the  English  rabbit,  burrow- 
ing  in  every  hillside  and  under  every  stone  wall  and 
jutting  ledge  and  large  bowlder,  from  whence  it  makes 
raids  upon  the  grass  and  clover  and  sometimes  upon 
the  garden  vegetables.  It  is  quite  solitary  in  its 
habits,  seldom  more  than  one  inhabiting  the  same  den, 
unless  it  be  a  mother  and  her  young.  It  is  not  now 
so  much  a  wood  chuck  as  a  field  chuck.  Occasionally, 
however,  one  seems  to  prefer  the  woods,  and  is  not 
seduced  by  the  sunny  slopes  and  the  succulent  grass, 
but  feeds,  as  did  his  fathers  before  him,  upon  roots 
and  twigs,  the  bark  of  young  trees,  and  upon  various 
wood  plants. 

One  summer  day,  as  I  was  swimming  across  a 
broad,  deep  pool  in  the  creek  in  a  secluded  place  in 
the  woods,  I  saw  one  of  these  sylvan  chucks  amid  the 
rocks  but  a  few  feet  from  the  edge  of  the  water  where 
I  proposed  to  touch.  He  saw  my  approach,  but  doubt- 
less took  me  for  some  water-fowl,  or  for  some  cousin 
of  his  of  the  muskrat  tribe  ;  for  he  went  on  with  his 
feeding,  and  regarded  me  not  till  I  paused  within  ten 
feet  of  him  and  lifted  myself  up.  Then  he  did  not 
know  me,  having,  perhaps,  never  seen  Adam  in  his 
simplicity,  but  he  twisted  his  nose  around  to  catch  my 
scent ;  and  the  moment  he  had  done  so  he  sprang  like 
a  jumping-jack  and  rushed  into  his  den  with  the  ut- 
most precipitation. 

The  woodchuck  is  the  true  serf  among  our  animals  ; 
he  belongs  to  the  soil,  and  savors  of  it.  He  is  of  the 
earth,  earthy.    There  is  generally  a  decided  odor  about 


94  NOTES  BY  THE  WAY. 

his  dens  and  lurking-places,  but  it  is  not  at  all  dis* 
agreeable  in  the  clover-scented  air,  and  his  shrill 
whistle,  as  he  takes  to  his  hole  or  defies  the  farm  dog 
from  the  interior  of  the  stone  wall,  is  a  pleasant  sum» 
mer  sound.  In  form  and  movement  the  woodchuck 
is  not  captivating.  His  body  is  heavy  and  flabby. 
Indeed,  such  a  flaccid,  fluid,  pouchy  carcass,  I  have 
never  before  seen.  It  has  absolutely  no  muscular  ten-^ 
sion  or  rigidity,  but  is  as  baggy  and  shaky  as  a  skin 
filled  with  water.  Let  the  rifleman  shoot  one  while 
it  lies  basking  on  a  sidelong  rock,  and  its  body  slumps 
off,  and  rolls  and  spills  down  the  hill,  as  if  it  were  a 
mass  of  bowels  only.  The  legs  of  the  woodchuck  are 
short  and  stout,  and  made  for  digging  rather  than 
running.  The  latter  operation  he  performs  by  short 
leaps,  his  belly  scarcely  clearing  the  ground.  For  a 
short  distance  he  can  make  very  good  time,  but  ha 
seldom  trusts  himself  far  from  his  hole,  and  when 
surprised  in  that  predicament,  makes  little  effort  to 
escape,  but,  grating  his  teeth,  looks  the  danger  squarely 
in  the  face. 

I  knew  a  farmer  in  New  York  who  had  a  very 
large  bob-tailed  churn-dog  by  the  name  of  Cuff.  The 
farmer  kept  a  large  dairy  and  made  a  great  deal  of 
butter,  and  it  was  the  business  of  Cuff  to  spend  nearly 
the  half  of  each  summer  day  treading  the  endless 
round  of  the  churning-machine.  During  the  remainder 
of  the  day  he  had  plenty  of  time  to  sleep,  and  rest.^ 
and  sit  on  his  hips  and  survey  the  landscape.  One 
day,  sitting  thus,  he  discovered  a  woodchuck  about 
forty  rods  from  the  house,  on  a  steep  side-hill,  feeding 
about  near  his  hole,  which  was  beneath  a  large  rock. 
The  old  dog,  forgetting  his  stiffness,  and  remembering 
the  fun  he  had  had  with  woodchucks  in  his  earlier 


THE  WOODCHUCK.  95 

days,  started  off  at  his  highest  speed,  vainly  hoping  to 
catch  this  one  before  he  could  get  to  his  hole.  But 
the  woodchuck,  seeing  the  dog  come  laboring  up  the 
hill,  sprang  to  the  mouth  of  his  den,  and,  when  his 
pursuer  was  only  a  few  rods  oft*,  whistled  tauntingly 
and  went  in.  This  occurred  several  times,  the  old 
dog  marching  up  the  hill,  and  then  marching  down 
again,  having  had  his  labor  for  his  pains.  I  suspect 
that  he  revolved  the  subject  in  his  mind  while  he  re- 
volved the  great  wheel  of  the  churning-machine,  and 
that  some  turn  or  other  brought  him  a  happy  thought, 
for  next  time  he  showed  himself  a  strategist.  Instead 
of  *  giving  chase  to  the  woodchuck  when  first  dis- 
covered, he  crouched  down  to  the  ground,  and,  resting 
his  head  on  his  paws,  watched  him.  The  woodchuck 
kept  working  away  from  the  hole,  lured  by  the  tender 
clover,  but,  not  unmindful  of  his  safety,  lifted  him- 
self up  on  his  haunches  every  few  moments  and  sur- 
veyed the  approaches.  Presently,  after  the  woodchuck 
had  let  himself  down  from  one  of  these  attitudes  of 
observation,  and  resumed  his  feeding,  Cuft  started 
swiftly  but  stealthily  up  the  hill,  precisely  in  the  at- 
titude of  a  cat  when  she  is  stalking  a  bird.  When 
the  woodchuck  rose  up  again.  Cuff  was  perfectly  mo- 
tionless and  half  hid  by  the  grass.  When  he  again 
resumed  his  clover.  Cuff  sped  up  the  hill  as  before, 
this  time  crossing  a  fence,  but  in  a  low  place,  and  so 
nimbly  that  he  was  not  discovered.  Again  the  wood- 
chuck was  on  the  outlook,  again  Cuff  was  motionless 
and  hugging  the  ground.  As  the  dog  nears  his  victim 
he  is  partially  hidden  by  a  swell  in  the  earth,  but  still 
the  woodchuck  from  his  outlook  reports  "  all  right," 
when  Cuff,  having  not  twice  as  far  to  run  as  the 
'chuck,  throws  all  stealthiness   aside   and   rushes  di- 


96      ■  NOTES  BY  THE  WAY. 

rectly  for  the  hole.  At  that  moment  the  woodchuck 
discovers  his  danger,  and,  seeing  that  it  is  a  race  for 
life,  leaps  as  I  never  saw  marmot  leap  before.  But 
he  is  two  seconds  too  late,  his  retreat  is  cut  off,  and 
the  powerful  jaws  of  the  old  dog  close  upon  him. 

The  next  season  Cuff  tried  the  same  tactics  again 
with  like  success  ;  but  when  the  third  woodchuck  had 
taken  up  his  abode  at  the  fatal  hole,  the  old  churner's 
wits  and  strength  had  begun  to  fail  him,  and  he  was 
baffled  in  each  attempt  to  capture  the  animal. 

The  woodchuck  always  burrows  on  a  side-hill.  This 
enables  him  to  guard  against  being  drowned  out,  by 
making  the  termination  of  the  hole  higher  than  the 
entrance.  He  digs  in  slantingly  for  about  two  or  three 
feet,  then  makes  a  sharp  upward  turn  and  keeps  nearly 
parallel  with  the  surface  of  the  ground  for  a  distance 
of  eight  or  ten  feet  farther,  according  to  the  gi-ade. 
Here  he  makes  his  nest  and  passes  the  winter,  holing 
up  in  October  or  November  and  coming  out  again  in 
April.  This  is  a  long  sleep,  and  is  rendered  possible 
only  by  the  amount  of  fat  with  which  the  system  has 
become  stored  during  the  summer.  The  fire  of  life 
still  burns,  but  very  faintly  and  slowly,  as  with  the 
draughts  all  closed  and  the  ashes  heaped  up.  Res- 
piration is  continued,  but  at  longer  intervals,  and  all 
the  vital  processes  are  nearly  at  a  standstill.  Dig  one 
out  during  hibernation  (Audubon  did  so),  and  you 
find  it  a  mere  inanimate  ball,  that  suffers  itself  to  be 
moved  and  rolled  about  without  showing  signs  of 
awakening.  But  bring  it  in  by  the  fire,  and  it  pres- 
ently unrolls  and  opens  its  eyes,  and  crawls  feebly 
about,  and  if  left  to  itself  will  seek  some  dark  hole  or 
corner,  roll  itself  up  again,  and  resume  its  former  con- 
dition. 

D.  H.  HILL  LIBRARY 
North  Carolina  State  College 


North  Carolina  State  University  Libraries 

QH81  .B9563 

SHARP  EYES  AND  OTHER  PAPERS 


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